Pawns
by Rhiannon B
Summary: In the months following the end of the war, Mai is forced to deal with a missing princess, a string of grisly murders, Firelord Zuko, and soiled diapers. At least it's not boring. AU as of 3.14 and 3.15. Mai x Zuko
1. Prologue

Summary: In the months following the end of the war, Mai is forced to deal with a missing princess, a string of grisly murders, Firelord Zuko, and soiled diapers. At least it's not boring.

Disclaimer: Avatar ain't mine.

* * *

**Prologue**

"Lady Mai."

The guard sounded nervous. That could be good or bad, because it either meant that she was a dangerous criminal who one needed to be wary of, or that the guard was well aware that this whole trial business was nothing more than a formality, and was cautious about showing disrespect to a soon-to-be-free member of the nobility.

"Yes?" Bored neutrality, the only emotion she had allowed herself in the days following the Firelord's defeat.

"They're ready for you."

She stood, and allowed herself to be led from the room (too comfortable to be called a cell) without protest or fuss, even though she was fairly sure that she could have made the guard bleed without too much effort, knives or no. She had once thought that life in Omashu was boring; it was _nothing_ compared to a week spent alone in a room, with nothing to do but contemplate the walls.

Well, not quite a week. They had led her out once before, to attend Ty Lee's trial. That had almost been entertaining, as she had watched the freshly crowned Firelord stumble over finding a suitable punishment for someone who had, even briefly, been a friend. Finally, Ty Lee, who Mai occasionally thought had glitter and fluff for brains but who was incapable of holding a grudge, had smiled brightly and suggested, with every intention of being helpful, that he banish her. Mai had no doubt that her friend had run off back to the circus the moment she had crossed out of Fire Nation waters, and was quite happy for it.

They passed the great double-doors to the throne room, still hanging off their hinges from that final, disasterous confrontation between the Firelord and the Avatar. Beyond it was a smaller door leading to the royal quarters.

There were signs of damage here, too, and Mai carefully turned her head as they passed by what was left of the old nursery wing, happier not to think of her own part in that.

Halfway down the hall they came to another door, with nothing to set it apart from any of the others: dark wood, polished to a high shine. The guard looked at the servant posted outside, and cleared his throat uncomfortably before escorting Mai inside.

General Iroh was seated closest to the door, in a chair facing the desk that dominated most of the room. He looked up from his tea briefly as they entered, and Mai wasn't quite sure how to take the smile he directed at her. She was fairly certain that she hadn't done anything to warrant that kind of friendliness from him.

Zuko – Firelord Zuko, now – sat on the far side of the desk, his head bent over a stack of papers. He didn't look up when she entered.

Standing near the large fireplace that took up most of one wall between the desk and the door was the Avatar. There was no fire lit, and the light streaming through the high-set windows on the opposite wall cast shadows across his face, but she was fairly sure that he was looking at her. She gazed back at him, as coolly as she could, and had just looked away when Zuko raised his head from his work.

"Mai," he said, with a certain softness that reminded her of the note lying unread in her wardrobe, half-hidden under a crumpled pink robe that Ty Lee had sent her for her birthday two years before and which had been sitting unworn ever since. Then he cleared his throat, and his voice turned hard and professional. "Lady Mai. You have been acquitted of all charges against you. You are free to go."

The guard stepped away from her as if he had been burned.

"Why?" Mai asked. It was a rational enough question. She had helped Azula in her hunt for the Avatar, had been instrumental in bringing proud Ba-Sing-Se to its knees. She had even played her part as a loyal daughter of the Fire Nation during that last, desperate battle against the Avatar.

Zuko wasn't going to answer; she could see it on his face. That mix of evasiveness and frustration that told her that he didn't want to say anything, and couldn't understand why she wasn't cooperating. It was finally Iroh who spoke, after a brief hesitation while he blew on his tea to cool it. "You made certain choices during the final battle which lead us to believe that you have no further intention of pursuing the goals of the former princess Azula or her allies."

Mai didn't flinch, even as her fingertips tingled with the memory of a stiletto sent flying before she had even consciously decided who her target would be: brother, or sister?

"Rather that punish you further for actions which are, after all, in the past, we have decided to release you."

From what she could see of the Avatar's face, he wasn't entirely pleased with that, but he nodded philosophically. Mai barely saw it, her mind already busily turning over Iroh's words.

"I see," she murmured, and wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed, or why she would be either. "It's political. If you pardon a friend of Azula's, then neither the generals nor the courtiers who supported Ozai have any reason to fear immediate or harsh retribution. It buys you time." And it was safe enough to make an example of her. She had already burned all the bridges that would have allowed her to oppose the new rule, and had given them no indication that she would do so even if she had the means. She was a politician's daughter, though, and said none of that.

Iroh didn't confirm her words, but he didn't deny them either. Instead he smiled serenely at her, as though she would believe the senile old man routine for a moment, and returned to his tea. Since that was as clear a dismissal as she was likely to receive, Mai started to go, but Zuko's voice stopped her.

"What did she say to you?"

No need to clarify who he meant when he said 'she.' Half-bent in an exiting bow, Mai allowed herself to close her eyes, and remembered how close Azula had leaned to deliver that parting shot, their cheeks almost touching. Of course Zuko hadn't heard.

"She told me that I had made my bed," Mai replied, her voice steady, "and that she would burn me in it." She paused, and added, for accuracy's sake, "And then she laughed."

There was a brief, answering pause.

"Azula always lies," Zuko said, and Mai thought that he intended it to be reassuring, even though the words had the cadence of an old mantra, repeated to the point where it had lost all meaning.

She couldn't quite keep from sighing, exasperated. A lifetime's worth of study, and he still didn't understand his sister. "Azula only lies when she has a reason to." She straightened from her bow. "Sometimes, the truth suits her better."


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

"Lady Mai." 

"Come in, Lee," she said, without looking away from the window. The butter-mellow light of the sun made the land look soft and golden through the glass, tinting even the red-tiled rooftops of the distant farmsteads with yellow and casting deep shadows beneath their eaves. Hardly exciting, but she could admit, objectively, that her father's study had a view unrivaled by any other room in the house.

Her father's study. Her study, now.

She heard the uneven scrape of Lee's footsteps as he approached her desk – he had walked with a limp for as long as she had known him, and that was most of her life. She had never been quite sure how he had earned that limp, although she had heard at least a dozen contradictory stories about it. A street brawl. A war injury. A rampant komodo rhino. An angry husband.

When the thump-scrape of his footsteps halted, she finally turned to look at him. Tall and ropey with muscle, black hair just starting to turn gray at the temples, laugh lines around the mouth and eyes. Like the limp, his appearance hadn't changed in the years that she had known him. He looked like a former soldier of middle years, if a bit more good natured than most. Of course, she had no guarantee that he had ever been a soldier and, no matter how free he was with a smile, he could turn deadly in an instant. It had been Lee who had taught her how to drop a man twice her size at fifty paces with a knife the length of her middle finger.

Some people actually _listened_ to her when she told them she was bored.

Mai had actually been a little sorry to see him go when her family had moved to Omashu. He had worked for them since she was in diapers, but when he had been told that her father had been offered governorship over the city, he had smiled and said that the Earth Kingdom air war hard on his health. She hadn't seen him or heard from him since their departure, until she had received a note requesting a meeting the day before.

"You wished to speak to me?" she asked, prompted by the memory.

"I wanted to offer my condolences," he said.

"They are appreciated," Mai said, the words coming easily, with all the practice she had gotten saying them recently. Easily, but not sincerely. It was surprisingly hard to play the mourning daughter when she wasn't sure how much grief she really felt, and had always been taught not to show what grief she _did_ feel. "It would seem that you were right not to come with us to Omashu."

He shrugged a shoulder. "That wasn't why I stayed behind, but you're right. The riots in Omashu have been some of the worst. King Bumi seems to have it under control now, but it was a near thing. Still, I am sorry."

"It's alright," Mai said, quietly. "I understand why they did it. No one likes to be controlled." She sat, and motioned for him to do the same. "I still have one member of my family left, at least."

"Your brother. I heard."

"King Bumi was kind enough to ransom him back to me once he had been recovered," Mai said, and reigned herself in quickly when she heard the edge to her words, sharp as the stilettos she kept up her sleeves. "The Firelord has been kind enough to appoint someone to oversee the transaction. I expect Tom-Tom to arrive within the week. You didn't come just to comfort an old student." It wasn't a question, but her voice was once again calm and controlled.

"That's true," Lee agreed amiably. "I thought you might have work for an old dog like me."

Mai raised an eyebrow. "Doing what? Whipping young guards into shape? You know that none of the nobility are allowed to keep private militias or house members of the national army anymore. That was part of the treaty with the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes; a greatly reduced military under central control, with future allowances made for a constabulary force intended to keep the peace." Boring. Like reciting history lessons when she and Ty Lee and Azula had been in school, the only difference being that this particularly dry piece of information was a bit more current.

"You _are_ a politician's daughter," Lee said, with a touch of wry humor.

Mai shrugged, abruptly tired of the word games. "Whatever. If you want a position, you can have it. I'll find something for you to do." She cast a glance at the pile of unopened letters that littered the top of her father's desk. "If nothing else, I suppose I could have you answer condolence letters."

A wolfish grin was his response. "No, thanks. Paperwork makes me break out in hives."

There were distinct disadvantages to hiring someone who had seen her in nappies, Mai reflected. She would be getting no properly deferential treatment from Lee.

"Besides," he continued, undaunted, "I have no time to answer letters. I need to make sure that my favorite student hasn't gone soft since last I saw her."

Mai almost smiled at that, and took it as the challenge that it was intended to be. Letting her old teacher try her skills would be something interesting to do, for a while at least. She motioned him out the door, and let him lead the way to the training ground next to what had once been a barracks. The building had once house her father's small private militia and a company of Fire Nation soldiers. Now it lie empty, the militia gone to Omashu, the army disbanded, and her own skeleton crew of house servants completely disinterested in a relic of the too recent past, even though most of them had brothers or sisters or children who had been soldiers.

An hour later she returned to the house, arms and legs aching pleasantly with exertion, fine strands of hair plastered to her forehead. Her mother would have had a fit, but it reminded her more of Azula than of her mother. Azula, who could practice her bending for hours and still look cool and perfect at the end of it, even when they had been children.

"_You've made your bed, Mai. Now I'm going to burn you in it."_

She hadn't looked cool and perfect then, her voice kept low and painfully pleasant. She had been sweat and soot stained from her fight with Zuko, her clothing torn, her hair disheveled. There had been blood barely visible against the red of her tunic, blood that dyed her sleeve a dark crimson from wrist to elbow, blood from where Mai had...

A thin, painfully plain girl that her housekeeper had hired the week before as a maid approached her, snapping her out of her reverie. The direction that her mind had been turning was not the girl's fault, but Mai stared her down anyway, and paid for it when nerves rendered the poor creature unable to speak for several more seconds.

Honestly.

Finally, she managed to stutter out that there was someone waiting for Mai in the study.

"Who?" Mai asked, losing interest already. Another one of her father's political rivals or her mother's social rivals come to gloat politely under the guise of shared grief, no doubt.

The maid looked up, her plain little face practically glowing as she said, in tones of muted awe, "The Dragon of the West."

She was going to fire the little twit at the earliest possible opportunity, Mai decided.

"Send him in some tea," she said. "I'll join him shortly."

After retreating back to her rooms, she took her time changing clothes, washing her face, and brushing her hair. It wasn't dislike that made her take her time in going down to greet the former general; nor was it disinterest. In the month and a half since she had been acquitted and left the capital, she had heard no word from either Zuko or anyone connected to him, except in the official capacity, when she had been brought news of her parent's death and been asked to raise money for Tom-Tom's ransom. She wasn't sure why that would change now, wasn't sure why the Firelord's most trusted advisor would be traveling days from the palace to see her at her family's admittedly isolated estate.

When she finally trekked back into the study, she found another surprise waiting for her. In the form of a drooling, smiling toddler.

"You brought my brother," Mai said, unable to think of anything else to say.

Iroh smiled genially and bounced Tom-Tom on his knee. "Yes." The smile wilted a little. "Didn't you get the letter I sent you?" Agni bless it, he actually sounded disappointed.

Mai kept her face carefully neutral.

"I sent it a week ago, to tell you when I would arrive with your brother."

She tried not to let her eyes shift to the pile of deliberately unopened mail sitting on the desk.

"By private messenger hawk?"

And failed.

Iroh followed her look and sighed. "I hope that you at least got the official notice of your brother's return." He used one hand to balance her baby brother, who giggled, and reached for the cup of tea that had been left of the edge of the desk.

"I did," Mai said, circling the desk to take her own chair across from him. "I'll have to take more care with my mail, and separated the deathly boring from the remotely interesting in the future. Sorry, General Iroh."

She stared as the toddler in his lap reached up to grab at Iroh's beard. Tom-Tom was _still_ drooling, she noted, with mild fascination and more than a little disgust.

"Uncle."

"What?"

"Call me Uncle Iroh," he said, and smiled placidly as if nothing pleased him more than the thought of her establishing some sort of deranged extended family connection to him.

Azula was right, she though. Her uncle was cracked.

More disturbing was the thought that, because of her past connections to both of his brother's children, they probably did have some sort of deranged extended family connection.

Tom-Tom let loose a squeal of delight when he managed to wrap his chubby little fingers around Iroh's beard. Then he pulled. Hard. Mai gave Zuko's uncle credit where it was due: he barely flinched. He just shifted the toddler so that his beard was no longer within easy reach, and bounced his knee again.

The disruption, brief though it was, gave Mai a chance to think. There was something not right about this whole arrangement.

It was politics, she finally decided. She wasn't sure how or why, but it was still a sound guess. When your nephew was the newly-crowned Firelord who had ended a hundred-year war, very little was not about politics.

"It's quite an honor to have you escort my brother home personally," she said, not even trying to keep the flatness out of her voice. "I'm curious as to why you decided to take several days away from what I'm sure is an exceptionally exciting life of tea drinking and pai sho playing to do so."

"I wouldn't call it time away," Iroh said, contemplatively. "This is some excellent jasmine tea that you're serving." He took another sip, as if to prove it.

"Why are you here?" Mai asked.

"To return your brother."

"And?"

Iroh sighed and put his tea down. "There is something," he said, slowly, as if he was choosing his words carefully, "which needs to be done. I – and Zuko – believe that you might be the right person to do it, if you are willing."

Mai was careful, so careful, to keep her face blank. But she was thinking. The days ahead of her stretched out, long and interminable, spent replying to condolence letters and going over accounts and firing poor, mousy little maids just to break up the monotony. All the quiet, polite, politic things that her parents had raised her to do, but why was she doing them now? Who did she have to please; whose career did she have to further?

"Yes."

For just a moment, she remembered the when Azula had come to her in Omashu, with a similar proposition. She had agreed then, too, impetuously, without even bothering to wonder...

"Don't you want to know what you're being asked to do?"

Had Azula asked her that? Mai couldn't remember. She shrugged, and waved a hand through the air to indicate that he should continue.

"You remember Princess Ursa."

It wasn't really a question, but she nodded anyway. She remembered Princess Ursa, in the same vivid way that she remembered the rest of her childhood visits to the palace as Azula's particular friend. Those days had been a bright spot in her otherwise dull young life. Ursa had been tall, and beautiful, and much kinder than Mai had expected after becoming aquainted with her daughter. Azula had never much liked her mother, just as she had never liked Iroh, but Mai... Mai hadn't minded her.

"There is reason to believe that Ursa is still alive, and that she was banished shortly after the death of my father, Firelord Azulon. With the war over, Zuko would very much like to try to seek her out."  
"Of course, Zuko is unable to," Mai murmured.

"Yes. Since that is so, he would like you to go try to find her. Quietly."

"I understand not having the Firelord go off to look for her, but why me? Why keep it quiet, rather than going through official channels?"

Iroh looked at her seriously, although he continued to bounce her brother gently. Tom-Tom underscored their conversation with soft, happy baby babble. "There are still many scars left from the war. It will take time to build trust between the nations again, lifetimes even. Our ambassadors and diplomats have had to work hard to gain what acceptance they have from the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes; to send in a large search party might damage what they have achieved. You are talented, you know the Earth Kingdom, and I believe that you can be trusted. Others are looking as well, friends from Zuko's time with the Avatar, but they have their own duties and concerns which they need to attend to, and the interests of their own countries to look after; you would be able to dedicate you time to the search in a way they cannot."

Mai turned that over in her mind, unable to help but feel that she was missing something, but unable to pinpoint what it was. "That sounds reasonable." Already, something was heating up in her blood, filling her with a touch of the same sizzling excitement that she felt in the middle of a fight.

"Come to the palace," Iroh encouraged her. "It would be best to start the search from the place where the princess was last seen."

That pulled her up short. "Tell me something, Uncle." He couldn't miss the irony in that last word.

He had the sense to look wary. "Yes?"

"How _is_ our brave young Firelord?"

It was a stupid, stupid moment of weakness to want to know, of course. It wasn't even the question she had meant to ask. At least the words she had chosen and the tone that had gone with them were harder and stronger than whatever momentary idiocy had prompted her to ask in the first place; even to her own ears, she didn't particularly sound like she cared what, who, or how Zuko was doing.

"He is... adjusting."

Such a careful answer, Mai thought. She nodded once, curtly, and let her eyes wander back to one of the large windows that dominated the otherwise bare walls of the study. It was dark outside, now, the sun's light having faded in favor of the cool kiss of the moon. "I wasn't sure. It takes a while for the gossip to reach us, this far out."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Iroh stop bouncing Tom-Tom on his knee, and she heard clearly enough her brother's mewling sound of protest. "You don't have to explain to me, Mai," he said, his voice placating and knowing enough to tickle her with irritation. "Are you angry because you've heard nothing from him since he assumed the throne? He's had a lot on his mind, you know, these past few months. Ruling a country in turmoil is no easy task. He barely takes time to eat or sleep, much less to write to or speak to friends."

"I'm not angry," Mai said, turning back to Iroh. She had made an eleventh hour defection to the Avatar's side of the war, and the Firelord had pardoned her for all the hours that had proceeded it. He owed her nothing. "And I'm not a friend." Maybe once, but not now.

The suddenness of Iroh's smile put the lie to his doddering old man routine. "Really? That's too bad. I'm afraid he doesn't have many these days. Less than he needs."

Was there a warning in that? How bad _were_ things at the palace?

She would find out soon enough, she supposed.

"Would you like to stay the night?" Mai asked.

"Thank you, yes," Iroh said, rising, with Tom-Tom still cradled in his arms. "My bones are getting old, and they don't like to travel as much as they used to." When she started to stand, he waved her back into her seat. "Don't trouble yourself, please. I'll ask one of your fine staff to show me where to go." Without another word, and without giving her a chance to reply, he plopped Tom-Tom into her lap and left the room with a speed that belied his old bones.

She looked down at her brother. He had stopped drooling, but flaky white trails of dried spit had formed in streaks down his chin. He met her gaze, his own eyes dark and impossibly wide.

Then he began to cry.

Mai sighed.


	3. Chapter Two

Note: Thanks for the reviews! Someone asked if this is how I think the end of Avatar will turn out. The short answer is: nope, not at all. I just have fun writing fic -- I'm not trying to read the creators' minds. That would be cool, though.

* * *

"_But if it be a sin to covet honour,  
__I am the most offending soul alive."_

- King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

"I'm sorry my uncle isn't here to say goodbye," Zuko said, taking a seat next to Toph at the edge of the turtleduck pond.

"Eh, don't worry about it," she replied, stretching her legs out until her bare feet almost touched the water. "I'm leaving now that you have an official delegate from the Earth Kingdom, but that doesn't mean that I won't come back and visit. You know, if my parents don't lock me in my room until I'm thirty."

The possibility of anyone being able to cage Toph if she didn't want to be caged was so slim as to be nonexistent, but he said, "Even if they do, we'll break you out."

The girl made a very rude sound. "Just like old times. Nah. You have enough on your plate."

That was undeniably true. Anger, never far from the surface these days, simmered for a moment, before Toph's presence and the familiar surroundings of his mother's garden soothed him.

"That bad?" She responded not to any spoken word, but to whatever subtle clues his body had given over to the ground beneath him.

"Worse," he said, shortly. It was nice, not to have to deal in subterfuge. He would miss that freedom once Toph was gone, when the only person left to confide in would be his uncle.

"They still at it?" she asked, not without her own rough brand of sympathy. After all, she had "seen" what was happening firsthand, having stayed on as the unofficial representative on the Earth Kingdom in the months since he had claimed his throne. "I caught some of this morning's meeting. You have good ideas, Zuko. I don't know why those idiots are going out of their way to try to trip you up."

"Spite," he replied. "Most of them were Ozai's pets."

"So get rid of 'em," Toph said, as if it was as simple as that.

Maybe it was, but removing his councilors would cause a whole new set of problems. Firelord or not, he couldn't directly oversee everything that had to do with governing the nation, which meant that he, like every Firelord before him, had been forced to delegate control over certain aspects of the government. Unfortunately, learning all the ins-and-outs of a job like that could take years; his own people, those loyal to him, just didn't have the experience for him to use them in the place of those who had done the job under Ozai's rule.

Supposedly, that shouldn't matter. He was the Firelord, and he didn't need the approval of, say, the Lord of Ports in order to impose a new tax on goods shipped from the Earth Kingdom. But it was the Lord of Ports who would enforce that tax – or not.

When he didn't respond, Toph shrugged, and lay back against the ground, her blind eyes staring up at the sky. "Your uncle told me about your mother."

"Of course he did," Zuko muttered. It was a conversation he had meant to have with Toph, anyway, before she returned to the Earth Kingdom. Even if she couldn't see, she was one of the most observant people he knew, and the search would benefit from her keeping her eyes open, so to speak.

"I'll poke around when I get home," she promised, without him having to ask. "I think I'd like to meet Mama Firecracker."

The use of the familiar but not exactly beloved nickname made him sigh, but protesting was more or less begging her to use it more often. "I appreciate it," he said, a little stiffly. Even now, even with friends, "thank you" wasn't easy. He was already indebted to them, and didn't like reinforcing the feeling.

"Don't mention it," Toph said. "Why'd you decide to start looking?"

No use lying. "I received a death threat."

"For you?" She sounded confused, and he didn't blame her. Since he had taken the throne, the occasional death threat had become routine.

"For my mother."

Toph frowned. "If _you_ don't know where she is, how does someone else?"

"They might not," he said shortly. "It might only be an attempt to distract me. But I won't risk it."

"You're going to go see your sister."

"How did you know that?"

She laughed, as if she could see the befuddled look on his face. "Something's gone wrong. Even odds that Azula is behind it, right?"

"That..." should have been impossible, since his sister was still imprisoned "...is probably true."

A twist of her foot, and Toph was on her feet, the earth beneath her having pushed her upright. The turtleducks squawked with alarm at the sudden earthbending, their short wings beating against the water at the center of the pond. Toph ignored them. "I'll walk you there."

Since any protests of his were likely to be as ignored as the turtleducks, Zuko simply stood, and led the way.

He was the Firelord. He ruled his nation with a firm but merciful hand, in spite of his councilors' attempts to sabotage him. He had taught the Avatar firebending, and helped to end a hundred-year-old war. He _still_ knew that arguing with Toph was like bailing water from the sea, or any of this uncle's other proverbs about useless occupations.

He probably didn't need to lead the way to his sister's prison; Toph had built it, after all. It was on the palace grounds, a tall tower close enough to the family quarters that he could see it through the windows of his study. It might have been foolishness to keep Azula so close, but Zuko preferred it to locking her away in some distant location. At least here, he could keep an eye on her.

The tower rose up, made from the same dark volcanic rock as everything else, but somehow more organic looking than anything made by Fire Nation hands. It loomed over the houses around it, and Zuko wondered briefly what had prompted him to have it built so close to Mai's family townhouse. Clear space, he decided, and the vantage point from his study.

A bored-looking earthbender stood with one massive shoulder against the wall of the tower. He straightened when they approached, and Zuko had the feeling that it had more to do with respect for Toph than respect for the Firelord.

"_The Boulder_ heard that you were leaving."

The man seemed nervous. Maybe it had more to do with fear of Toph than respect for her. Zuko had heard that she had exchanged some choice words with her fellow earthbenders, when convincing some of them to stay behind in the Fire Nation and help guard the former princess.

"The ship will wait," Toph said offhandedly. She stomped her little foot, and the earth nearest to the tower rose up, forcing _the Boulder_ (what kind of stupid name was that?) to scramble out of the way. A staircase formed, winding its way up the bare side of the tower, stopping under the iron-barred door at the very top, right beneath the peaked roof. Toph turned back to Zuko. "The Boulder will bring it down when you're done."

Zuko stood awkwardly for a moment, wondering how he was supposed to say goodbye to someone who had been a staunch ally and a more-or-less constant companion for almost a year. He was saved from having to come up with something when Toph snorted, slugged him in the arm hard enough that he knew he'd have a bruise the next day, and stomped off with a parting, "See you, Firecracker."

He turned, and looked at the Boulder. The Boulder looked back, and shrugged. "_The Boulder_ is no longer worried about admitting that he is afraid of a little girl. _The Boulder_ is secure in his masculinity."

Zuko cleared his throat, decided to pretend not to have heard that, and started his trek up the stairs.

Through the metal bars on the door, he could see his sister's silhouette against the window on the far side of the room. Even with the light streaming in from outside, the room was dark; Azula was not allowed candles. Her bending had been blocked, but there was still the chance that she could manipulate as existing flame using her breath alone.

When she saw him, she stepped closer to the door. The light from one of the side windows fell across the perfect lines of her face, and the slight, mocking curve of her lips. "Hello, Zuzu."

He didn't respond, simply reached into a deep, hidden pocket in his robe, and pulled out the neatly folded piece of parchment. One morning, he had woken up to find it sitting on his dressing table, which had been empty of even that much clutter when he had tumbled into bed mere hours before. Without a word, he handed it to her.

Azula took the note with her left hand; her right hand dangled uselessly by her side. She unfolded it one-handed, and skimmed the characters written there with apparent amusement. "You think I sent this?"

"Yes."

She laughed, and refolded the note. "Oh, Zuzu. It's always nice when to come by to entertain me. Being in prison can be dreadfully dull." The laughter faded, as abruptly as it had started, although a smirk still lingered at the corners of her mouth. "_Why_ would I threaten to kill our mother?"

"It wouldn't be the first time you tried to kill a family member," he reminded her, his voice tight.

She leaned forward, and the smile turned deadly. "I never succeeded." She tilted her head, thoughtful. "Then again, neither did you. You got the _Avatar_ to do your dirty work, with father." She held the hand with the note out in front of her, and Zuko had the feeling that, had she been able to, she would have set it aflame. "And I still seem to be here."

"Just answer the question, Azula." He did not play games with his sister. Too often, he lost them.

She flicked a lock of hair out of her face. "I have no intention of killing mother. Does that satisfy you? What would it gain me to do so? I mean, yes, it would probably make you cry, but really. I'm in prison. If I'm to reach beyond the walls of this charming little cell you gave me, there are things more worth my time."

It was impossible to miss the threat in her words. Even in prison, denied visitors, Azula had influence.

"As for doing the deed myself..." she laughed. "I don't know how you would expect me to accomplish such a feat. I mean, I'm touched by your confidence in my abilities, but do you really expect me to break through door, scale seventy feet of mirror-smooth wall, and destroy whatever guards you have posted, all without being able to firebend?" She flicked the note at him through the bars, hitting him in the forehead. "Or had you forgotten that? It's amazing what a capable physician with a set of needles and knowledge of the pressure points can do, isn't it? No, you needn't worry about me hurting a hair on mother's head. I'm as harmless as a baby koala-cat."

For a moment, they looked at each other through the bars, both of them well aware that Azula hadn't been harmless a day in her life.

"Well?" Azula said, when the silence stretched and grew. "Aren't you happy? You've won. I've lost. Father was wrong." She sounded so pleasant, as if she was asking him whether or not he'd enjoyed breakfast that morning, and wasn't the weather unseasonably warm? "So maybe I haven't accepted it. Maybe I'm still plotting against you. There isn't much I can _do_ about it, is there?"

"And you'll keep plotting," Zuko said, his voice hard.

"Oh, yes," she agreed immediately. "As long as you let me live, you'll be waiting for my next little surprise. It's your own fault, really. What did you expect me to do? I wait, and I plot. That's what a Firelady in prison _does_."

"You were never Firelady."

"I was father's heir," she said. "I wonder what that makes you. A usurper, I suppose. I rather like the sound of that. Zuko the Usurper. Perhaps that's what I'll have you called in the history books, once I have what's rightfully mine."

"No, Azula," he said. "You will never leave here."

For a moment, she looked surprised, as if she hadn't expected that from him. Then her expression changed, and he wondered if it was his imagination or the uncertain light that made her look as though she was gloating. "No? Well, maybe not."

"If I find out that you had anything to do with this," Zuko said, stooping to pick up the note without taking his eyes off her, "I will have the earthbenders take down the tower. With you in it."

"So serious, Zuzu." Azula said, completely unconcerned by his threat. "You couldn't kill me six months ago. Why should I believe you would be able to do it now?"

"Try me."

He left before she could answer.


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

Tom-Tom had cried for most of the journey. He had also cried for the two nights preceding their departure, after Iroh had left to return to the capital.

Predictably, the moment that Iroh greeted them, her brother immediately started to smile and coo, as if he was a perfectly normal, not-entirely-repulsive baby, instead of being a fiend sent to torment her for her past wrongdoing.

"Poor little one," Iroh said, scooping her delighted brother out of her arms. "Cranky from the trip, are we?"

Mai wasn't sure how the former general could tell that without any verbal input from Tom-Tom, who, for all she knew, could have been hungry, soiled, or expressing his opinion that more tax money should be put into maintaining Fire Nation roads.

She thought she heard a snicker behind her, and pointedly did _not_ look at Lee.

"I've arranged for apartments for you within the palace," Iroh said, his mind turning swiftly to business. "Since there is no telling how long you will wish to remain, I thought it best that you not have to open up your family's townhouse, nor arrange for servants or provisioning."

Mai thought of Zuko, and almost protested being housed in the palace. Being in close quarters seemed like an open invitation for discomfort, and fodder for those among the court gossips who had memories that stretched back more than a few months (not many of them, it was true, but enough). Then she thought of Azula's tower, which stood close enough to the house that it blocked the view from several of the westerly windows, and nodded her acquiescence. Having arranged things to her liking seemed to please Iroh, at least.

"You should probably arrange for a nurse for this one," he suggested, rooting around in his pocket for a moment before offering the now-docile Tom-Tom a piece of ginger candy.

Mai cast a look at the toddler, and shrugged. "I brought a maid," she said. The little mousy one, who had escaped firing because Mai had more important things to worry about. "She should be able to manage watching him."

The look on Iroh's face said that he wanted to argue, but he just nodded. "You know what's best," he said. _You really don't_, his tone said.

He cuddled Tom-Tom a little closer to his chest, and looked behind her, his eyes resting on Lee. She got the distinct impression that the old man was doing a double-take.

"It has been a while," the Dragon of the West said.

Lee raised his eyebrows. Iroh smiled.

"Perhaps you will play a game of pai sho with me while you are here?"

"You cheat."

Iroh tched like a maiden aunt. "A Master never cheats." He waited, looking at Lee expectantly.

Lee sighed, and looked down. Then he looked at Iroh and, obviously begrudging each word, said, "The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets."

Mai wasn't even going to try to decipher that conversation. There were certain things she just _did not_ want to know about old men and their proclivities, and this sounded like one of them.

Somehow, though, she wasn't surprised when Lee fell into step next to Iroh on the way to her rooms. She couldn't hear much of what they said, for which she was profoundly grateful, although she did catch Lee's vehemently muttered "..._ridiculous_."

Iroh chuckled, and replied, "The cryptic arts most often are, yes." Then their voices fell back into quiet murmurs, and she was left to follow them without having to worry about either the annoyance of a weeping toddler or the threat of overhearing something that would require a lightning strike from Azula to erase it from her mind.

The rooms that Iroh took them to were sumptuous, located in the part of the palace designated for guests; visiting diplomats and those rare members of the nobility who were important enough to be housed in close proximity to the royal family, but who didn't have houses of their own either on the palace grounds or in the surrounding city. Mai stepped into the outer room of what appeared to be a larger suite, and trailed her fingers over the rich red fabric that covered one of the room's low couches. Lee took one look around, shrugged, and made some excuse about having friends to visit in the barracks before disappearing, his limping footsteps surprisingly silent against the hard, glossy floors.

Their surroundings just seemed to make her maid uneasy. Iroh set the toddler down to explore his new surroundings, and the woman followed after him attentively enough, but she kept casting nervous glances about her, as if she thought that one of the fine, heavy pieces of furniture was going to attack at any moment.

Mai made a disparaging noise. Iroh gave her a reproachful look, a sure sign that he did not approve of attempts to make the staff jump. Usually she would have resented the attempt to curtail even so mild a form of amusement, but she didn't doubt that she would have more than enough to keep her interested, now that she had arrived.

"Tell me," he said, after a moment, his face relaxing back into a smile, "do you play pai sho?"

She had when she was younger. She had been good at it, too, her ordered mind picking out patterns and tactics that others missed, although she had no skill for improvising and little imagination when it came to moving the little painted tiles around the board. Still, she had been good. A little too good. Azula hadn't liked that. "No."

"Too bad. What about politics?"

How had they gotten from board games to backstabbing? Mai had no doubt that was what he meant; no amount of lacquered paint could make the pai sho tiles more that bits of fired clay, and no amount of polite language and beautiful manners could make politics anything other than what it was.

She thought of her mother. "A little."

Iroh beamed at her. "Good. I'll give you time to wash up and change, and then there's something that I want to show you."

Mai was intrigued in spite of herself, so she agreed and showed him out of the rooms – her rooms, at least for the time being. The maid left Tom-Tom long enough to lay out a fresh set of clothes, and Mai made quick use of the hot water supplied in a small room off the bedchamber before going to find Iroh.

When Iroh touched her arm to guide her down the hall, she was sure he was using it as an opportunity to check if her wrist sheaths were in place. That didn't bother her so much as the impression that he _approved_ of her being armed within the palace. There should have been no need for weapons here, under the watchful eyes of the bulk of the remaining Fire Nation troops.

He led her to the throne room, past the enormous main doors, which had been repaired sometime during her absence. Instead, he led her in through a small side door. She paused once inside, letting her eyes adjust to the nearly complete darkness. What little light there was – the _only_ light in the room – was cast by the flames that surrounded the dais in a wall of flickering heat. The Firelord sat on the dais, his back straight, his face thrown into sharp relief by the fire. The scar, in particular, stood out, small shadows cast across the less-than-smooth skin over his eye. Before him knelt a dozen of his councilors.

Seeing Zuko again was made a great deal easier by having a cavernous room and a wall of fire between them, Mai reflected. If that had been Iroh's thinking in bringing her here, she was impressed.

It soon became obvious, however, that the general's intentions were quite different. "Sit," he told her, quietly, so as not to draw the attention of the other occupants of the room. He knelt in the shadows of one of the room's great pillars. "Watch."

Carefully, Mai knelt beside him.

She did not like what she saw.

"Firelord Zuko," said one of the councilors. Mai automatically identified him as Lord Wei, one of her father's friends. When she had been nine, he had suggested an alliance between her and his eldest son. Her parents had refused; by then, Mai had been in and out of the palace on a daily basis to visit Azula, and they had set their sights on a more advantageous match. "Surely it has become obvious by now that this experiment with the smallholdings simply cannot work. It has been almost six months since they were established, and they are yet to become productive. Soon, we will have to rely on the Earth Kingdom for our food supplies."

Mai glanced at Iroh for an explanation. He leaned forward, speaking softly into her ear.

"Part of Zuko's conditions when pardoning many of Ozai's old supporters and allowing them to retain their positions and power was that they each give up a sizable portion of their lands."

A soft breath escaped Mai, almost a hiss, although her face remained impassive. She was sure that more than one Agni Kai had been fought over that; the nobility would not like giving up lands that had been theirs for generations.

Iroh nodded, as if she had voiced the thought. "The lands that he received in return for his forgiveness were converted into smallholder farms, and used to help resettled the soldiers who were returning from the war, those who had been discharged from the army after the treaty with the Earth Kingdom was signed."

She considered this, since he seemed to be waiting for her to speak. "That would allow the returning soldiers to make a living, and help avert the threat of a food shortage. Fire Nation soil is very fertile, from what I understand. Something to do with all the volcanoes?" She didn't really understand all that dirt-grubbing stuff, and was happy to leave it to the farmers and laborers. However, some principles were so basic that even she understood them, and she counted back the months since Zuko had taken the throne. "The harvest is yet to arrive. How can Wei complain that the farms aren't productive?"

Iroh looked rueful. In the background, Mai heard Zuko echo her words, much more placidly than she would have expected from him. Really, after ten minutes of listening to his councilors patter, Mai would have expected a mortality rate somewhere in the double digits. It made her a little sad, really. The boy she had known was all grown up and playing the king.

"What you say is true," Iroh said, his voice quiet. "It is also true that soldiers returning home after a long war need something to occupy their idle hands, or they will find things to occupy themselves. And, after so many years of violence, I don't think I need to tell you that the things they choose to occupy themselves tend to be equally destructive."

Mai remembered the thrill of a knife in her hand, and the slight flick of wrist that would send it flying. "I can understand that."

"I'm sure you can," Iroh said, his voice deceptively mild.

"I can also understand why his councilors are fighting him every step of the way," she added, and was gratified to see Iroh glance sharply in her direction. "Don't misunderstand me. Zuko is doing… well, what he feels needs to be done, I suppose." She wouldn't admit that some of those things he was doing were necessary, even admirable. "But he's made them barter for their lives with their wealth. He's ended the war. He's changing their – our – way of life, and he's doing it fast and hard."

"He's the Firelord," Iroh said. "He shouldn't have to please them." He didn't sound like he really believed that. More like he was testing her.

"How far did Firelord Ozai go to please them, during the early days of his reign? He was a second son whose royal father had died under mysterious circumstances. He never would have succeeded if he hadn't spent his first few years on the throne alternately threatening and pandering to the nobility and to the people, and if the alternative candidate for Firelord hadn't proven to be useless in the eyes of the nation." There was a sort of vicious pleasure in saying that to his face, a cruelty to it that she recognized as being far, far too reminiscent of Azula. She stopped, breathed deeply, and let her emotions slide back beneath the silent, still waters of her carefully controlled mind.

With her rebellious feelings under control, she was suddenly bored with their conversation, and with the spectacle of watching Zuko attempt to coral his councilors. When there was no passion or ambition to drive it, no one could deny that politics were deeply dull. She slumped against the column closest to her, and fixed her eyes on the fire enshrouded throne. "I don't doubt that the commoners adore him," she said, "but he would do well to remember that the men and women in this room are much closer to him, and much more inclined to poison his dinner."

Her stomach gave an uncomfortable twist at that.

"You're sure that you won't play pai sho with me?' Iroh asked.

"Games bore me," she said. "Why did you want me to see this?"

"Since you've returned, I thought it important that you know the state of things here." He shrugged genially.

"I'm here to search for Princess Ursa, not to take tea with the Admiral of the Fleet. Any politics I need to know about to complete my mission are almost ten years old; I don't need to see this."

Iroh looked at her, his eyes gleaming with reflected firelight from the throne. "You asked how he was doing,"

"With all due respect," Lord Wei said, drawing her eyes to him, his creased face smiling and his eyes hard, "you are very young."

The wall of flames flickered ominously.

"I am the Firelord," Zuko said, and his voice was iron and fire.

"I meant no offence, Firelord Zuko," Wei said, quickly, but the words slipped over his tongue without touching his heart, the lack of sincerity obvious.

"This is your answer," Iroh told her.


	5. Chapter Four

"_Where we are,  
__There's daggers in men's smiles"_

- Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

It was with relief that Mai escaped the throne room, as quietly as she had entered and with as little notice from any of the room's occupants. Iroh remained behind, intending to speak to Zuko once the young Firelord was done with his councilors.

Her relief was short-lived. She had barely stepped out through the room's small, half-hidden side door when the great double doors beside it swung open, and Zuko's councilors came streaming out. She took a step back, and most of them walked past her, deeply absorbed in their own conversations or the promise of a late breakfast. It was pure bad luck that Wei glanced her way, and stopped.

"Lord Wei," she greeted him, when she realized that interaction was inevitable.

"Mai!" he said, with a great deal more warmth than she had shown, his big voice hearty with what seemed to be genuine happiness to see her. "I hadn't realized that you had returned to the capital."

She could have told the truth. Iroh had left no specific instructions when it came to who could and could not know about the search for Ursa, and Wei was a family friend. Even as the thought crossed her mind, she discarded it. "The country air did not agree with me," she replied, and sighed inwardly when she realized that sounded like one of Lee's excuses.

Wei took it at face value, nodding in sympathetic agreement. "I understand. To tell you the truth, I was worried about you, all alone in that big house. I'm quite sure that your father would not have approved."

By the time of his death, her father had not had a great deal of say in what she did and did not do, but she didn't say that. "Your concern is greatly appreciated," she told him instead. Then, since she sounded bored even to her own ears, she added, "I wasn't entirely alone. My brother was returned to me this past week."

"Ah, yes," Wei said, nodding his graying head. "But a child is no company for such a beautiful young woman. You need to be among your peers." He glanced her over. "My son still thinks of you kindly."

"Indeed."

The warning in her voice was obvious enough that he smiled and let the subject go. "Where are you going?" he asked. "May I walk you there?"

"The royal archives," she said, since that seemed as good a place as any to start the search for Ursa. Once again, she didn't tell him why, even though he looked at her with obvious curiosity. She thought her reluctance might have had something to do with the way he had spoken to Zuko in the throne room.

"I would be happy to accompany you," he said, when no answer to his unspoken question was forthcoming.

They turned and started down the hall, and there was a moment of silence before Wei once again began to speak. "How much of our little meeting did you hear?" He laughed at the sharp glance she cut his way. "What other reason for you to be so close to the throne room? Don't worry, I can understand perfectly why you would eavesdrop. You're your father's daughter, after all, and it's natural that you would want to know what's going on after spending such a long time away." He should his head. "Disgraceful, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"Why, the current state of affairs!" Wei said, in his too-loud voice. "That puppy is hamstringing his own country. First, the peace declaration, and now this pathetic attempt to win the favor of a few peasants."

For a moment, Mai's mind stopped working, before it came back to sudden, whirring life. Strange, that he was speaking to her as if she was a natural ally. Perhaps she was, as the daughter of an old and trusted friend, especially since she was certain that Zuko had done nothing to publicize her part in his fight with Azula. Still, it was odd for him to disparage the Firelord so openly.

_It's an unwise politician who speaks too freely and listens too little,_ her father had told her once, when she was young and he was still willing to occasionally take her into his lap while he answered letters or ate his dinner. He, himself, had proven that creed to be an unshakable truth. He was not a clever man, and was far more loyal to his family than he was to the Fire Nation; he had achieved his position in part by being silent, and knowing who to listen to and how to use what he heard.

"It's more wise than foolish to seek the approval of the people he's ruling," Mai replied, with a languid shrug. "I agree that he should put the needs of the nobility before those of the common people, but I don't think it's quite so dire as you make it out to be."

"You're very young," Wei said, dismissively, and Mai's eyes narrowed.

"Yes, I heard that, too," Mai said, her tone bland enough that she knew it would give him nothing to gauge her reaction with. "The Firelord is probably less likely to overlook such reminders than I am."

Wei glanced at her, laughed warmly, and gave her a courtier's smile: warm, and fading before it touched his eyes. "I'm sorry. I've offended you. My son tells me that I'm too quick to dismiss the opinions of anyone under the age of forty; perhaps he's right." He touched her elbow to guide her around a corner, and it was instinct more than intention that made her run a caressing finger over the springs that would release her knives into her hands.

Well, maybe there was a little bit of intention in it, she thought, as she dropped her fingers away from her knives. Killing him seemed to be the only way to get him to _shut up_. Agni save her from men who liked to hear themselves speak.

"You were close to Firelord Zuko once, were you not?"

"Once."

"Ah," he said, as if her monosyllabic answer had given him all the information he could possibly need about her thoughts regarding Zuko. "Perhaps it's best that you reconsidered. Beside the Firelord is not the safest place to be standing right now."

Something cold and hard settled in Mai's stomach, even if Wei was only confirming what she, herself, had so recently told Iroh. Perhaps what chilled her was that he was speaking treason so candidly, as if he had no fear of there being any repercussions.

"What makes you think that _I_ was the one to reconsider?" she asked.

Wei stopped, forcing her to stop with him, a look of sudden, sharp realization on his face. It had been stupid of her to let Wei know that she was more Zuko's ally than his, she realized, but seeing the muted disbelief on his face almost made it worthwhile. "I see." He tried for a smile, and mostly succeeded. "Perhaps I simply can't imagine him casting off anyone as lovely as you. Please forgive the assumption."

"Of course. All is forgiven," Mai said, with a shrug and a dismissive wave of her hand. "I believe that I can go the rest of the way on my own."

He was almost too quick for politeness in his agreement. "Take care of yourself, Mai. Your father would never forgive me if something happened to you," he said, and disappeared down the hall in a swirl of crimson-and-gold robes. She continued on to the archives alone.

The tiny, white-haired archivist, who looked to be about a hundred, let her in with a minimum of protest, although he didn't seem pleased at having his solitude disrupted. He also looked at her strangely when she requested all of the records of banishment and execution for the years of Ozai's rule.

She settled at the room's single, long table, which was squeezed between the rows of dusty shelves, and began to read. It took a while; the writing was legible, but small, and the scroll that she had been given would have been twice her size if she had unrolled it all the way. Instead, she poured over it a little at a time, her head bent close to the paper to make out the names written there.

She paused only once, when she reached Zuko's name. There, in plain, black ink, devoid of details, was the ruling that had turned all their young lives – Zuko's, Azula's, even hers – upside down. How very strange. She wondered if it had ever occurred to Ozai that, had he acted with a little more forbearance towards his eldest child, he might have kept possession of both his throne and his life. No, most likely there hadn't been time for him to think anything of the kind.

She wondered if Azula thought about it.

By the time she reached the end of the scroll, it had become clear to her that she would find nothing. "May I have the records for the last few years of Firelord Azulon's rule?" she asked, without looking up. The little man grumbled at her, but complied, dropping a new scroll on the table beside her with every indication that she was inconveniencing him horribly. Mai began to read again.

Even though she knew that what she was looking for would have appeared at the very end of the scroll, if it was there at all, she read the entirely thing with care, the record of all crimes awful enough to warrant death or exile during the last five years of Azulon's rule.

Ursa's name did not appear on either scroll. There was no record of her banishment.

"Is there documentation of royal births and deaths for the last decade?" Mai asked, even though she doubted that her eyes would focus on another registry filled with cramped black letters.

"Of course," the archivist said, his faded gray eyes annoyed as he looked at her over a set of thick spectacles. "The Fire Sages have it, though. I would have to request that they send it over to me."

There was a long, drawn out pause.

"Can you?"

The archivist made a short, annoyed noise. "Of course I can. You can't look at them, though. Not without permission. _Royal_ permission," he added, as if there was any doubt about what he meant. The look on his face said clearly that he doubted she could get such permission.

"Thank you," Mai said shortly, and left the room. That was something she would have to talk to Iroh about. For now, she intended to return to the relative peace of the guest quarters she had been assigned.

Her quarters were in chaos.

The little maid she had brought with her was having hysterics in the center of the sitting room, fat tears running down her cheeks. A pair of (greatly more efficient) palace maids were having significantly more contained hysterics while tearing her the room apart, one cushion at a time. Lee was watching it all with his arms crossed over his chest, evidently fascinated by the whole process.

Her maid immediately began to babble incoherent, sobbing apologies. Mai looked at Lee.

"Your brother has gone missing," he explained helpfully. "I really don't think he's under there," he added, as one of the palace maids picked up a small oil lamp from off the desk and checked under it.

"Missing?" Mai said. Her voice was silk smooth, and hid admirably the completely inexplicable surge of panic that she felt at the news.

"I doubt it's anything to worry about," Lee said. "How much trouble can one toddler get into?"

"The last time he wandered off on his own, he was kidnapped by a band of Earth Kingdom rebels."

"Huh." Lee considered that. "We're not in Omashu, though. We're at the heart of the Fire Nation. _Inside_ the palace."

"I also may have made an enemy," Mai said. Suddenly, the look on Wei's face when she had revealed that she had not been the one to cast off Zuko was less amusing. There had been shock on his face, but she wondered now if that had been cold cunning and not surprise in his eyes. "Inside the palace."

Lee looked impressed. "We've only been here a day."

"I'll find him," Mai said shortly, and strode back down the hall, away from the upheaval in her quarters. She was sure that her brother, fully mobile and having already displayed a rather marked amount of wanderlust, would not have remained so close to home.

Halfway down the corridor, she was rewarded with the first sign that her brother had, indeed, passed this way. There was a sticky smudge on the edge of a painting of Firelady Ilah, near her right foot. The lady gazed reproachfully down at Mai, as if chastising her for her brother's misbehavior.

Two hallways down and one quick left turn latter, she found a vase toppled from its alcove. Another turn, and a little red leather bootie that she recognized as belonging to Tom-Tom caught her eye. She scooped it up, and continued to the end of the hall, realizing with a sense of foreboding that she was approaching the royal wing of the palace. She hadn't trespassed here since the day of her trial.

Another corner. Not twenty feet in front of her stood her brother.

Tom-Tom saw her. He giggled, once, and immediately began to run in the opposite direction, as if he _knew_ what she was thinking of doing to him as soon as she caught him.

His chubby legs carried him with amazing speed down the hall and through the first open door he found. Mai followed, and found her brother, who was obviously more cunning that she gave him credit for and seemed to harbor some unresolved hated towards her for attempting to abandon him to the Avatar, trying to pull himself into the Firelord's lap.

Zuko looked down, his face a mask of surprise at finding a pair of determined little baby hands clinging to his robes. Then he looked up.

If Mai hadn't had all outwards signs of emotion trained out of her by the age of five, she might have cringed. Instead, she remained impassive. "My apologies, Firelord Zuko."

She reached forward, and tried to pick up Tom-Tom. His fists remained firmly wrapped around their silken prize, and he made a noise of protest that indicated a fine tantrum to come if she continued to try to separate them.

"Mai?"

She wondered if her sudden appearance or her brother's behavior accounted for how absolutely dumbfounded he sounded. She didn't respond, hoping to retrieve Tom-Tom and retreat before Zuko fully recovered. Unfortunately, Tom-Tom was not cooperating.

"Why me?" she muttered, and gave her brother another tug.

"Because you fought for me instead of Azula."

It was enough to make her pause.

_Because...?_

Well, that wasn't really what she had meant, although it was nice to know. Or maybe that was the answer to her question. The heavens were punishing her because, in a moment of insanity, she had chosen to betray Azula and defend Zuko.

And Mai, who had been taught never to speak unless spoken to and _certainly_ never to speak without thinking, said, "I didn't mean to."

One more tug, and she successfully dislodged Tom-Tom. She managed to bow around her armful of squirming toddler, and was out of the room before he could draw the breath to scream, and before Zuko could speak.

By the time that she managed to find Iroh, Tom-Tom was wailing at the top of his lungs and driving his little heels into her stomach hard enough to leave bruises. She was also fairly certain that he had soiled his diaper, just to spite her.

The old man looked up from his tea, shock turning quickly to amusement on his face.

"I need you to find me a nurse," Mai told him.


	6. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

Since sleep was a fairly innocuous way to relieve boredom, Mai did not rise with the sun. Judging by the wailing coming from the other room, this was not a characteristic that her brother shared. She pulled herself out of bed with something that might have been a sigh, or a snarl.

Lee was in the sitting room, his legs folded half-lotus, his eyes closed. "I think he needs changing," he teacher informed her, without moving.

"And changing a toddler's diaper was too difficult for a warrior of your capabilities?"

He cracked one eye, and grinned at her. "Babies are bad for my delicate nerves," he told her blandly. "The mere thought of picking one up makes my heart start beating like a war drum. Changing a diaper would leave me bedridden for days. I might swoon."

Mai looked at him through narrowed eyes, making it clear how difficult she found it to believe that a man who had once knocked a scorpion-moth off her cheek with his shaving razor from forty feet away had _delicate nerves_.

"Go take care of your brother." Much to her disgust, he removed his hands from his knees long enough to make shooing motions at her. "It's your own fault for dismissing your maid. Go, go."

Mai completed that task and emerged from Tom-Tom's room, dirty diaper in hand, to find Iroh waiting for her. "Good," she said, and handed him the diaper. He took it without comment, wrapping it into a much neater bundle than she would have managed.

"I have a list of suitable nursemaids for you," Iroh told her, beaming, and she nodded, relieved that her days of diaper changing were numbered.

"When can I meet them?"

Iroh looked away, his face a mask of innocence that made her instantly suspicious. "The first candidate is waiting out in the hall."

A brief silence followed, in which Mai took in her own state of disarray, still dressed in her nightclothes, fine hair tangled from the pillow. "Why did that seem like a good idea to you?"

"Most people rise with the sun," Iroh explained, with a shrug and a smile. "The traveler that waits until morning to pack their bags cannot cry when the boat leaves without them."

"What?"

Lee snorted from his place on the floor. "Go get dressed, Lady Mai," he said. "I'll greet your guest."

"I've asked one of the servants to bring us some tea," Iroh added.

"Of course you did."

Mai returned to her room; she was a wise enough warrior to know when she had been defeated in battle. She rifled through her clothing quickly, pushing aside a robe too fancy and formal for interviewing a perspective employee, and kicking aside a pink robe (where had she gotten _that_?) when it came slithering out of the bottom of the wardrobe. Why had the maid even packed it? It only reminded her just how useless the girl had been.

Eventually, she pulled out a plain robe of raw silk, dyed pure, unrelieved black. It matched her mood.

When she emerged, she found a neatly dressed young woman seated comfortably on one of the couches, a parasol propped against her knees and a large, ugly bag at her feet. Mai sat across from her, her expression as stonily resolved as that of any young general preparing to lead his troops into battle. Iroh placed the tea things between them, but neither woman made a move to take a cup. With a shrug, he poured two cups, taking one for himself and giving the other to Lee, who was standing near the window and watching the prospective nursemaid with half-lidded eyes.

"You brought references?"

The woman smiled merrily at Mai. "Oh, I make it a point never to give references. A very old-fashioned idea to my mind."

"Yes," Mai said, in a tone that had been known to strip the paint from a wall, "after all, why would anyone need to know that you're marginally trustworthy or competent before hiring you to care for a child?" When the woman continued to smile, she sighed and continued. "Are you at all qualified for this post?"

"Oh, yes, I'm very qualified. Item one: a cheery disposition. I am never cross. Item two: rosy cheeks. Obviously. Item three: play games, all sorts. Well, I'm sure your child will find my games extremely diverting. Excuse me. Item four: I am kind, but extremely firm..."

Somewhere between items one and two, Mai turned towards Iroh. She used the pause after item four to slip her own comment in.

"Make her _go away_."

Iroh looked dismayed, but he hustled the woman out the door, parasol and ugly bag and all. When he returned, Mai gave him a look of thin-lipped annoyance, and he looked apologetic. "She seemed nice."

"She seemed insane."

"Am I the only one that thought she might burst into song?" Lee wondered. When both Mai and Iroh looked at him, he shrugged. "I guess so."

"Are you ready for the next one?" Iroh asked.

There were more?

Of course there were more.

As it turned out, there were fourteen more, none of them with any more promise than the first. Mai was bored by the time that she had finished interviewing number three, and stared at each of the following prospective nurses through a haze of bleak lethargy. Blessed Agni, would it never end?

"This is the last one," Iroh told her, with the air of someone promising a child a treat in return for good behavior. It was just the two of them, now; Lee had wandered off to find some other occupation, and Mai had to remind herself that envy was both petty and common. Still, even the promise that her search would soon be over for the day wasn't enough to cheer her.

Maybe she would just hire the next interviewee, irregardless of how capable or qualified they were. It was a tempting thought, since it meant that she wouldn't have to sit through another day of this torture. The idea seemed even more promising when the woman entered, tall and austere, dressed as severely as Mai was in black and dark gray without any hint of lace or embroidery. She even provided references. It seemed like it might work, so Mai pulled herself out of her delirium of boredom far enough to actually listen to what the woman was saying.

"I believe that a strictly structured environment is the only way to properly care for a child's needs, and make sure that they grow up to be a contributing member of our great Nation," she said, her voice remote. "I'm sure you agree, Lady Mai, since it is my understanding that the most eminent families are very concerned with the proper behavior of their children. Rest assured, if you were to hire me, I would make sure that your brother never troubles you with childish antics or inappropriate conduct. With rigorous discipline, along with the promise of rewards for good behavior, I can train him to behave with the decorum that any member of a noble family should show."

Iroh regarded the woman with a sort of morbid fascination, as if he was wondering how she had come to be in the room. His chuckle sounded a little forced. "Now, now. He's barely more than an infant. Surely he's too young to be so concerned about, er, decorum?"

The woman shook her head sharply. "Sir, it is never too early to impress upon a child the importance of silence and stillness. If you let them go too long, they turn into boisterous little terrors, ruined for life."

Both of them looked towards Mai when she moved to sit forward on the couch, her movements languid but suddenly more alert. "In other words," she said, "you believe that a child should behave, and sit still, and not speak unless spoken to."

She was interested to see that the look on Iroh's face bordered on repugnance, although he made no move to stay her sudden interest in this candidate. The woman nodded again, this time with a bit more fervor. "Exactly."

She stopped nodding only when a blade whistled past her ear and embedded itself in the wall behind her. Then she stood, and left, quickly.

Iroh relaxed noticeably. "I think that was a wise decision."

"Oh, yes," Mai said, rolling to her feet to recover her knife. "Obviously, her nerves were not up to the task." She braced her hand against the wall, and twisted the knife free, leaving a gouge in the wood paneling. "Besides, for all her talk about appropriate conduct and decorum, she left without expressing gratitude for my time or even saying a proper farewell. It would be a mistake, I think, to hire a nurse who doesn't practice her own policies. She would set a dreadful example for Tom-Tom."

"Of course," Iroh replied, and Mai pretended not to notice that he was hiding a smile in his sleeve. Instead, she sighed, the momentary entertainment provided by the last candidate quickly fading.

"I suppose we're back to this tomorrow, then?"

"Well..."

"Well?"

"I have been thinking."

"Yes?"

"Perhaps the typical sort of nursemaid is not what you need." Iroh stroked his beard. "I may have another candidate who is good with children, although she has no formal background in caring for them, and who also has somewhat... steadier nerves... than some of the other candidates have shown." He smiled at her. "Former military, you know."

"That sounds satisfactory. Can I meet her?" Mai wanted to ask him what the catch was. He seemed much more pleased with himself than even the not-so-simple task of procuring a nursemaid for Tom-Tom would warrant.

"Of course!"

Mai was not entirely surprised when there was a knock at the door. It confirmed her growing suspicion that Iroh, who Azula had always been so quick to dismiss as a tea-loving lunatic, had planned this all. She sighed, sat herself back on the couch, and waited with little enthusiasm but a great deal of resignation for the old general to reveal his next trick.

Instead of a trick, he opened the door to reveal a woman, not so much older than Mai, who carried herself like a soldier even though she was dressed like a civilian. Mai motioned her towards the much depleted tea supplies, and the woman sat.

"Mai, I would like to introduce you to Ming."

Ming inclined her head towards Mai, as close to a bow as she could come while sitting. Mai got the distinct impression that she would have rather liked to salute, but that sort of thing was for the parade ground, not the parlor. She was a little gratified to see that the former soldier seemed just as baffled to be there as Mai was to have her there; at least she wasn't the only one sideswiped by Iroh's machinations.

"I understand you would like to apply for a post," she said, and tapped the knife she had pulled out of the wall lightly against her own knee, just to see the former soldier's nerves were as steady as Iroh claimed. She saw dark eyes flick downwards, once, then back up to her own, calm and steady.

Resilient, Mai noted impassively, and there was something of kindness around her mouth that none of Mai's own nurses or tutors had possessed, as if she smiled more often than not. She wasn't smiling now, but that at least showed that she wasn't _excessively_ cheerful. Ty Lee would have been smiling.

"I am."

"Do you have any references?"

"Only General Iroh."

Former general, but Mai didn't correct her. The title was probably more appropriate than Ming realized, even if Iroh no longer held that post. What was so different between battlefield maneuvers and what he was doing now? "Qualifications?"

Ming smiled, stopped herself, and returned her face to funeral procession sobriety. "I have younger siblings, my lady."

If this candidate hadn't been personally provided by Iroh, Mai would have mocked her out of the room. "I see. Iroh tells me that you're former military, so I must assumed that you were released from duty when the majority of the army was disbanded. If you have no experience in caring for children, what have you been doing in the intervening months?" She saw Iroh look at her sharply out of the corner of her eye, and ignored him.

"Guard work, for merchants and the like. Some bodyguard work. I went home for a bit, too." The woman seemed a bit confused, as if she wasn't sure why this was important, but Iroh was still looking at her and now she knew _why_ he had suggested a former soldier as a nursemaid. It was a good thought, although not particularly comforting that he seemed to think that she would be in such a position that her family would need to be well guarded.

She considered. The woman was hardly an appropriate instructor for the son of a noble family; she wasn't uneducated (very few children in the Fire Nation were), but Mai would have guessed her family to be middle class at best, and she would be unfamiliar with the rules and protocols that Tom-Tom would have to learn, eventually. However, Iroh had also been right when he had said that her brother was too young, right now, to be concerned with such things. Mostly, she needed someone who could change his diapers, feed him, and keep him out of trouble. Surely a former soldier was capable of that – especially the last part. Possibly even more capable than a nursemaid.

"Very well," she said, finally stopping her tapping and sheathing her knife at her wrist. "I will speak with one of the palace scribes. They will draw up a contract for you, with your duties and compensation thoroughly outlined." With that decided, she promptly lost all interest in Ming, pointing her towards Tom-Tom's bedroom door. "You can start immediately."

Ming glanced quickly at Iroh, who nodded his approval. With an air of relief, she rose, and retreated from the room.

"Well played," Mai said, turning her gaze towards the former general. "I'm sure that she has absolutely no idea why you suggested her for the post, and by the time I was done sorting through all the other – entirely unsuitable – candidates, I probably would have selected a three-eyed dragon hawk rather than sit through any more of this agony."

Iroh said nothing, but he smiled.

"Since you seem to take such glee in organizing my life," Mai continued, "perhaps you can grant me a request."

"Oh?"

"It is possible that there may be information about Lady Ursa's banishment in the Fire Sage's archives. I need you to give me access to them."

"I would be happy to do so," Iroh said, and Mai relaxed into the cushions of the couch. In this, at least, she would get her own way.

"However," he added, "only the Firelord is allowed free access to those archives. Even other members of the royal family have to travel through him."

Of course.

"And I suppose you're perfectly unable to deliver my request to Firelord Zuko?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Iroh shrugged helplessly, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that desperate matters of... tea inventory... require my attention. I can arrange for a meeting, however. Perhaps during the dinner hour? It is possible that my nephew might have a few minutes to spare then."

Mai stared at him for a moment, fighting hard to suppress irritation. Then she sighed, and turned her head, negligently considering the hole she had made in the wall rather than look at Iroh. "That would be fine. I'd be grateful for any time that the Firelord could spare to consider my humble request," she added, sarcasm creeping into her voice.

"I'm sure that he'll look forward to seeing you," Iroh said. "It's been so long since you two talked."

"You are aware that there's a reason for that?" Mai wondered, but shook her head a moment later to show that no response was necessary. Instead, she turned back to face him, and idly wondered to herself what a knife would look like sticking out of that big, fat gut. Simple curiosity, of course.

Still, she let the thought show in her eyes, and Iroh was perceptive enough to absent himself following that.

Mai sank into the deep cushions of the couch, and committed herself to not moving from them until the dinner hour arrived.

* * *

Note: Why yes, that was Mary Poppins invading my Avatar fic.


	7. Chapter Six

Note: This chapter was done, save for the proofreading, when I saw "The Boiling Rock," episodes one and two. They BLEW my mind, but they have also effectively made this story AU. I still intend to finish it, but I wanted to note that it no longer even faintly resembles canon.

* * *

**Chapter Six**

Soon after sunset, when the blazing of the heavens was turning to dull crimson and blue with the deepening of twilight, Mai gave the guard who announced her a condescending glance and passed by him, into the Firelord's private dining room. Zuko waited there, already seated. He had shed the elaborate, formal robes that he had worn in the throne room, but even in a simply cut wrap coat and pants, he looked regal and more grown up than she remembered him being. She shouldn't have been surprised; if war hadn't stripped the last of his childhood from him, then the spending better part of a year on the throne certainly would have.

He started to rise, then stopped himself – there was no reason for the Firelord to leave his seat to greet anyone, even a daughter of the nobility. Instead, he waited for her to bow, and motioned her into the chair across from him once she had straightened.

"My uncle has told me that you have a request to make," he said, once silent servants had served them, and both of their plates were full.

"I do."

"Before we get to that," Zuko said, his voice low and rasping, almost but not quite pitched in the same way that had once called her elusive passions to the surface and made her flushed, feverish, and desperate not to let him know how he effected her, "I have a question to ask you."

She was, quite honestly, surprised by this new turn. Her face showed nothing. "Yes?"

He hesitated, then plowed on, with the same bluntness that had at once irritated and charmed her, before the war had come between them and he had made his sudden departure for places unknown. "You've probably noticed that I don't have many allies here. What you said in my study made me think. I need to know where you stand, Mai. I need to know where your loyalties lie before I let you go any further in the search for my mother."

Half a dozen responses flashed through her mind, most of them disparaging. _Oh, Zuko_, she thought, unable to name the emotion that made her stomach clench, although despairing amusement probably came closest, _subtlety really is lost on you, isn't it?_ "Isn't it a little late for that?" she asked, and kept her tone carefully placid, as blank as her face. "It's smart of you to realize that a little bloodshed on your behalf doesn't indicate eternal devotion, but it would have been smarter to realize it before you asked me to look for Princess Ursa."

Temper flashed in his eyes, narrowing them, the scarred one turning into a bare slit. She was almost relieved to see it, and then she was annoyed at her own relief. She hadn't realized that it had unsettled her to see his controlled – for him – display in the throne room the day before, but apparently it had. "Mai."

No mistaking the command in his voice.

She could play this out a little longer, give him evasion rather than unadorned truth. For a moment, she wondered what it would be like to feel concern for the wellbeing of a parent, to fear for them so deeply that it would rouse her to anger like his. She couldn't even imagine it, but even the vague picture that she managed to form made her feel... a little more sympathetic. "I'm on your side, Zuko." How could he do this to her? How could he move her, even when she had no inclination to be moved?

Unbidden, an image of Lord Wei rose before her eyes. "Whether I want to be or not," she added, both to save face and because it was true. Whether or not she had decided she was on his side, others had; that would force her hand.

He scowled at her, before his face went suddenly blank, impassive enough to mirror her own. "You don't _have_ to do this, Mai. If you really feel that you can't support me, you can return to the country. I won't stop you. There will be no consequences for your choice."

Mai tried to read his face, his eyes, always so expressive, and failed. The offer baffled her. For her to leave would be tantamount to declaring herself his enemy. To allow her to do so unscathed would be... foolish at best, since he had already told her, through Iroh, about his worries regarding his mother. That was dangerous information for an enemy to have, information that she wouldn't have hesitated to exploit, had she really been aligned against him.

She didn't _understand_ him.

To buy time, she took a bite of her food, chewed slowly, and swallowed without really tasting it. "Frankly," she said, once she was done, "the thought of returning to the country terrifies me more than the thought of facing down each and every one of your opponents at court, single-handedly. Do you know how _boring_ the country is, Zuko?"

Almost imperceptibly, something in the set of his mouth relaxed. It wasn't a smile, just a release of tension. "Fine." She could see him gathering himself together, reestablishing himself as the supremely arrogant Firelord, rather than a teenaged boy who just wanted to find his mother. "Your request?"

"I want access to the Fire Sages' archives."

"You do know that only the Sages and the Firelord are permitted there?"

"Yes. I also know that the royal archives in the palace are useless as a source of information on Princess Ursa's banishment."

"Then you have my permission," he said, without the slightest hesitation. "I'll call one of the Sages and give them their orders as soon as I can." He paused, his mouth tightening with thought. "Only read the things that might have something to do with my mother's disappearance, Lady Mai."

Apparently, the Fire Sages weren't the only ones getting ordered around tonight. "Of course, Firelord Zuko. I'll try to restrain any idle curiosity I might feel about what Firelady Illah served at her wedding banquet, or what Firelord Sozin wore for his forty-sixth birthday."

They ate the rest of the meal in silence. He served fruit tarts for dessert, and she pretended not to notice but ate two of them before he had even finished his first. When she looked up, she thought she caught him smirking, but it was gone before she could be sure.

It was only after she left that she realized that not once, during the entire interview with Zuko, had she been bored.

* * *

When she returned to her rooms, Mai found a man dressed in the traditional robes and conical headdress of a Fire Sage waiting outside of her door. His arms were crossed over his chest in obvious impatience, and his mouth was compressed into a thin, irritated line. When he saw her approach, he turned the full force of his ire on her, his golden eyes glaring, as if he could set her aflame without even the tiniest use of bending power. Mai didn't even bat an eye.

"Lady Mai," he said, and his mouth turned down with disapproval. "You have been granted permission to explore the Fire Sages' _secret_ archives."

She hadn't expected Zuko to move so fast. She lifted her head, staring at him down her nose. "Yes."

"I am here to take you there."

She also hadn't expected to begin work tonight, after a grueling morning and her... reunion... with Zuko. However, from the look on the Sage's face, if she refused, he would use it as an excuse not to offer again. "Then take me," she said shortly.

Quicker than she could have anticipated, much quicker than a man hampered by robes and age should have been able to, he moved behind her, and tossed something over her head. It blocked out the light, the air; it even muffled her hearing. In a flash, she had one of her knives out, and had brought it up and over her shoulder to rest against what she hoped was his throat.

To her surprise, he chuckled. "Put it away, Lady Mai. Surely you didn't expect to be allowed knowledge of where the secret histories are kept?"

In the long moments while she relearned how to breath through what seemed to be a heavy sack, she considered that, and found it reasonable. She kept the blade in place a few seconds longer, digging in hard enough to nick skin without causing serious harm, then sheathed it.

"If you're quite ready?" he asked, annoyance once again weighing heavily in his voice.

"Whatever."

He rested a hand against her arm, and used it to guide her. Their journey passed in silence. Coolness in the air let her know when they left the palace; the brevity of their time outdoors let her know that, wherever they were going, it wasn't far. Heat flared around her, leaving its imprint on her skin and making her heart pound. Then there was the low scrape of stone, and the Fire Sage led her, still blind, down a set of stairs.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he gathered the cloth at the top of her head, and jerked the sack off. One of the small brass weights tied to the edge of the fabric to keep it in place smacked her in the cheek, and the sudden shift from darkness to light left her eyes watering, but she didn't complain.

"I was told that you would be interested in the records from Ozai's rule," the Fire sage said, softly, now, and more reverent. Mai looked up, and found herself staring into the stone-carved eyes of the previous Firelord.

A statue. Only a statue.

The Fire Sage placed his hand against the emblem on Ozai's chest, and fire flared beneath his touch, traveling upwards until flames bled out of Ozai's mouth and eyes. Mai let her eyelids droop and her mouth tilt into a sulk to show that she wasn't impressed, but there was a bitter taste on the back of her tongue.

The statue slid aside, revealing a door, and the Fire Sage motioned her through.

"I will return for you in an hour" he said. He left her with a lantern, and disappeared back down the long, dark hallway. She watched him until the red of his robe had dwindled into nothingness, then stepped into the room.

It was more cluttered than she would have thought possible, packed to bursting with memento's of Ozai's rule – apparently, the current Firelord did not care to have reminders of his father sitting about. A fine layer of dust had accumulated in the past months, making her nose itch as she moved slowly toward the back of the room, her lantern casting an uncertain light.

The back wall was carved in a relief, another portrait of Ozai. Placed before it were a number of thin, long boxes, each of them facing forward so that she could read the characters written down the front. Years and dates, mostly, records of Ozai's reign. Her fingers twitched when she saw one labeled with the date of Zuko's banishment, the sight of it kindling the same morbid fascination that she had felt when she had seen the same date written down in the registry of banishments and executions, in the palace archives. She resisted the urge, smothering her little-used curiosity with ease and keeping to her promise not to look at anything that wasn't necessary to her mission.

Still, if she failed to find something more promising, there was always the _chance_ that there might be something useful in there. Her eyes traveled on, skimming impatiently over the years before Zuko's banishment. Finally, her eyes came to rest on the first scroll box, propped carefully into place against the wall.

_The Last Testament of Princess Ursa._

Mai stifled disappointment as she reached for the box. It was what she had been looking for, but the title implied that the only place where she might find Zuko's mother was the Spirit World.

She put the lantern down, and opened to box, letting it fall carelessly to the ground as she pulled out the scroll inside, and unrolled it.

_Once, I sat in my garden, and told my son that a mother is justified in any action she takes to protect her children. That is what I have done tonight, and it is as much as any mother would do to defend her baby; I have no regrets. I carried him within me for nine months, his heart beating in time to mine, and even after the cord between us was severed, that pulse beat on. Zuko. My son._

_The Firelord is dead. Long live the Firelord._

_This is the last night that I will spend in the Fire Nation. I have packed my things, and my husband has graciously allowed me to say my farewells. Tomorrow I board a ship to the Earth Kingdom, accompanied only by a young guard, the third son of one of Azulon's – Ozai's, now, I suppose – generals._

_Goodbye, my homeland. Goodbye, my son. Goodbye, even, to my daughter, who will always be more her father's than she is mine._

_I hope that, with time, you will all remember who you are, and what you once were. Never forget._

Mai replaced the scroll in its box, and put the box back where she had found it. A moment's search found her the records of deaths and banishments for Ozai's rule. The ones kept by the Fire Sages were much more detailed and complete than those she had read through in the palace archives, although Ursa's banishment still wasn't recorded in them. She unrolled the top two inches of the scroll, and a brief glance gave her the information that she needed.

Shun, third son of General Heng. Honorably discharged from the army and exiled – there was a contradiction – on the first day of Ozai's rule. Mai suspected that the young man had actually left the country some time before that, perhaps even on the last day of Azulon's rule, the same day that Ursa... had done whatever it was that she had done. Mai preferred not to contemplate that part of the matter.

A sigh slipped past her lips when she saw the next line of information.

Shun had settled in Omashu.

Of course, it _would_ be Omashu.

* * *

For the second time that night, Mai returned to her rooms. The Fire Sage removed the hoodwink from her face, and left her outside the door. It was with tired feet and an overactive mind that she entered the suit, and found Lee waiting up for her, his thin face lit only by the light of a single candle.

"Thank you, dad, but you really didn't have to wait up for me. The Firelord didn't try anything funny with his hands, and he got me home before midnight." It was a weak bit of sarcasm, at best. She had neither the energy nor the attention to come up with better.

Lee made a noncommittal sound. "I'm sorry to hear that your night was such a disappointment. I'm only going to make it worse."

Mai ignored the first part, and allowed her interest to sharpen at the second. "Oh?"

"I had one of the palace maids come in to clean," he said, "because tidying things sends me into fits. She found this," he held up the pink robe that she had kicked aside in her earlier quest for something to wear, "and this."

It took Mai a moment to recognize what he held in his other hand. Zuko's letter, still unopened. She hadn't looked at it in so long. Had, in fact, forgotten that it was hidden in one of Ty Lee's more spectacular failures at the art of gift-giving.

"When she saw the royal seal, she just about had hysterics. I believe she was afraid that she had waylaid something important during yesterday's search for your brother. I had to explain to her that it was just official permission to sigh a mope with impunity while visiting the palace." Lee shrugged, and handed it to her. It was then that she noticed that the seal was broken.

"You read this."

"Yes," he agreed. "I'm shameless that way."

"It's private, Lee. You shouldn't have opened it."

"Very private, apparently, since I seem to have been the first person to open it." He paused. "Why didn't you read it, Mai?"

Because she had been happier not knowing. Because it was hard enough, without reading whatever inarticulate and inadequate words Zuko had chosen to explain how he could so easily leave her.

"Excuses bore me," she said.

He sighed, and shook his head. "Read it." He paused, then added, "you silly girl."

Mai couldn't remember the last time anyone had called her _silly_. Before she could respond, he rose, blew out the candle, and retreated to his room, leaving her in near darkness with the letter.

She left it sitting on the table, and went silently into her own room. She had gone this long without knowing. She was content to leave it that way.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

When Mai emerged from her rooms the next morning, she found Lee quietly sipping tea with Ming, Zuko's letter propped up ostentatiously on the tray between them. "You didn't read it," he greeted her.

"Leave it be, Lee," Mai replied. Her voice was cool, but Ming must have heard something in it, because she looked between the two of them, stood, and retreated to Tom-Tom's room with her tea cup in hand. Once, she had been a promising enough soldier to be assigned to watch the Fire Nation's most dangerous criminals. She knew how to assess a situation, consider it, and decide that she didn't want to be caught in the crossfire. She had done so once before, when the general had advised her, in the gentlest terms, to take a day off and get some rest. Sometimes, the best way to persevere was in absence.

Lee waited until she had left before turning his attention back to his student. She was not like a daughter to him. He was childless, but he had the vague impression that a daughter would have some sense of filial duty towards her father, and would not cause him as much trouble as Mai did. Still, she had always been a favorite of his – what master could see his student excel so well at what he taught her, and not love her for it? – and he knew her moods as well as anyone did.

Even after he had left her father's service, he had kept tabs on her, wanting to know how she had put his training to use. Oftentimes, that knowledge had saddened him. Easy to be proud of her skill; harder to be proud of the way that she used it, and to what ends. He had known of her relationship with the newly restored prince, and had been able to guess, after the boy's defection, how it might affect his former pupil to be denied affection after craving it for so long. He had blamed Zuko for that, although he had understood, better than anyone but the other members of the White Lotus could know, what could lead a young, passionate man to walk away from his homeland and his people.

Even knowing all this, trying to read Mai's emotions was like trying to hit a target in a darkened room. He could only take his best guess, and hope that his blade flew true.

"Why are you so angry with him?" he asked, quietly.

Mai sat down across from him, taking the seat that Ming had so recently occupied, and tried not to feel cornered. Her arms and legs tingled with adrenaline, her body's built-in response to a fight. Unfortunately, razor-sharp daggers and reflexes weren't going to help her now. "I'm not. Why are you pushing this? It was a long time ago."

He snorted under his breath. "Months, Mai, not years. You're not an old woman yet."

"I'm the only one in the room who isn't. You meddle like someone's aged granny," she said, her smoky voice disinterested. "It doesn't matter how long it's been. Zuko's in the past for me. Leave him there."

"You're here at his request," Lee said, exasperated.

"I'm here at the Firelord's request," she corrected him, even though she knew that it was insane to insist upon differentiating between the two. Necessary, though. Zuko had abandoned her, and left only that stupid letter as an explanation. Zuko had fought his sister, and forced her to choose between the two of them. The Firelord was the one she had to answer to, and she couldn't do that if she was busy sorting through the jumble of feelings that Zuko had left with his departure.

Not that it should matter. Not that she should feel anything, now. Perhaps... perhaps she had been hurt. But her mother's teachings held strong. Anger and hurt were emotions that could not be afforded. They made you foolish and irrational, and drove you to do things that would arouse comment in others.

"I don't see the difference. If you're angry at Zuko, then you're angry at the Firelord. They're the same person, Mai."

"I'm not angry. I don't understand why people keep saying that I am." Iroh, and now Lee. If her emotions had been less under her control, she might have looked away. As it was, she met Lee's eyes directly, icy gray against faded brown.

He leaned forward, frustration clogging his throat and making it difficult to speak. "You must have felt something, Mai. Even you."

Deep, slow breaths. She wouldn't lose her hard-earned calm, not over this. "Of course I did," she said, her voice level. "Maybe I was angry. Maybe I was hurt that he could leave me behind so easily." The words continued to bubble up past her lips, even when she would have stopped them. "Maybe I was terrified that he would go and get himself _killed_." Another deep breath, and she managed to swallow the rest of what she wanted to say. The unsaid words scraped down her throat like glass. "It's past. It's not that I never felt those things, it's that they don't matter now."

"Mai—"

"I should have known, you know." The broken-glass words came back up suddenly, oddly painless coming out as they had not been when she had been keeping them contained. "Zuko was miserable while we were on Ember Island, and after, when we returned to the palace." She sounded so matter-of-fact, her face and her voice as serenely indifferent as ever, even if her usually ordered mind had rebelled. "I saw it. It just never occurred to me that he would actually do anything, even if he was unhappy. I never... act, Lee. I react, and usually that's enough. Because I would never try to change an uncomfortable situation, it just didn't occur to me that he might." She rested her hand against the couch, the soft fabric caressing her palm. "I suffer from a lack of imagination. That was – and is – my shortcoming, not his."

Lee was silent for a moment. Then he chuckled, and rested a hand on her head, with an easy affection that her father had never shown her. "A lack of imagination." He chuckled again. "Just read the letter, Mai. It's been almost a year. How bad can it be, really?" He stood, picked up the carefully rolled paper from where it sat on the tea tray, tossed it into her lap, and left the room.

_How bad can it be?_

Very. Maybe.

She touched the letter with long, careful fingers. Then she sighed, mostly at herself, and unrolled the paper in one lightning-quick movement that would have served her better on the practice courts than in the sitting room.

_Mai,_

_I'm sorry that you have to find out this way. A letter isn't right, but I don't think that telling you in person would be any better._

_It's strange, the things we take with us. When my father first banished me, I took my uncle and my hunger to return, and not much else. I didn't think on you much. Maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, you were one of the things I wanted to return to, but mostly you were just one of my sister's friends who made the times I was forced to play with her a little more tolerable._

_That's all changed. Now I'm leaving again, my banishment self-imposed, with an uncle who might no longer be willing to accompany me, and without any desire to return unless my father is no longer the one sitting on the throne. And I believe that I will think about you more than I should._

_I don't expect you to understand. I'll be a traitor in truth this time, and you'll probably hate me for it. I hope that you don't, but I can't take that into consideration now. For once, I've made a choice without the influence of my father, my uncle, my sister; I have to follow through._

_I'm sorry. I never said it, but I care about you, too. _

_I'll come back. I promise, I'll come back._

_Goodbye._

_Zuko_

Mai wished that she hadn't read it.

She had thought that she had moved past all this. Even seeing Zuko in his role as the Firelord hadn't been enough to bring it to the surface. What faint twinges she had felt... well, she was patient. She would have waited them out, and let them disappear in their own time. This, this letter, brought to mind everything he had been before joining the Avatar and taking the throne, everything she had loved. Awkward and inarticulate and passionate and so blazingly _stupid_ at times that it made her want to scream, but real and, for a time, hers.

She had _loved_ him. She still did, even after months of trying to make herself forget.

What was she supposed to do with that now?

Another girl might have cried. Since she denied herself that release, Mai touched the letter to the low burner set beneath the teapot to keep it warm, and watched as the paper blackened and crumbled in her hand. When the heat became too much for her to handle, she let the scroll drop into Lee's half empty teacup, and watched as it smoldered sullenly for a moment before going out.

When she had tired of watching the ashes float around the inside of the teacup, staining smooth white porcelain with black soot, she got up, and went to see Iroh.

He, too, was in the midst of enjoying his morning tea when he let her into his rooms. She didn't protest when he poured her a cup, but also didn't drink from it.

"The tea isn't good?"

_I don't care_. Courtesy, drilled into her over and over again for years, forced her to take a sip. "The tea is fine."

"Good, good."

"I need you to arrange passage into the Earth Kingdom for me."

Iroh had taken a swallow of his own tea, and gulped it down quickly at her abrupt non sequitur. "Already?"

"I've found something that bears further investigation," she said. "I thought it would be best if I did so immediately."

Watching Iroh think was interesting, at least. She could see that he wanted to protest, but could think of no good reason to do so. This was, after all, why she had been asked to return to the capital in the first place.

"When would you like to leave?"

"Tomorrow."

He was silent, and she could almost see him calculate and discard a number of excuses. "Very well. I will arrange for passage on a ship, provisions, and Earth Kingdom currency. You will leave tomorrow morning."

"Thank you." She sighed as he looked at her expectantly, and she was forced to add, "Uncle Iroh."

* * *

Lee helped Mai pack rather than allowing one of the servants to do it. He did so without commenting on either the letter or her sudden departure, which she took as a peculiar sign of repentance. When they were done, he took her out to the practice courts and worked her until her muscles screamed with exertion and she was ready to collapse from exhaustion. She called him Sifu when she bid him goodnight, the first time she had done so since she was a child, her own penance for her earlier outburst. That night, she slept soundly.

In the morning, she slipped into the room that served as Tom-Tom's nursery. Mai did not kiss him goodbye, or tenderly touch his cheek, but she watched the deep even breaths that he took as he slept, peaceful and quiet now as he never was while awake. When she turned, she found Ming watching her silently from her palette in the corner, her body tense and aware, and was content. No one would enter her brother's room without his new nurse's notice.

Iroh did not accompany her to the docks, and she was resigned and not at all surprised to find Zuko waiting there for her when she arrived.

He took her bag, filled not with her own belongings but the clothes and personal items of a well-heeled Earth Kingdom woman, and it seemed that his letter had crawled under her skin and ripped up her carefully maintained distance, because all she could think about was what it had been like to touch him back then, and how much she would like to do so now.

When they had been children, he had set sail from this very port, and she had not been there to see him off. Her parents had forbidden it. The irony of their role reversal was not lost on her, and she wondered distantly how it would feel to be gone for two years, and if time and distance would allow her tangled emotions to dim and turn shallow. That was what usually happened with infatuation, she told herself, and didn't really believe it.

"You were going to leave without telling me," he said, and she could hear the accusation in his voice. The urge to touch him returned, stronger than ever, but slapping the Firelord might breach her mother's rules concerning proper etiquette.

"You're hardly one to talk," Mai said, and thought that the words might have been as good as a slap when she saw him flinch.

It satisfied her, but at the same time she wished that she hadn't said it. His absence and her coldness had formed a gap between them, and she didn't know how to bridge it, but suddenly she wanted to.

"I'm _sorry_, alright?" he said, and she saw that he regretted it a moment later, so she ducked her head to avoid showing the little smile that flickered across her lips at the exasperation that had colored his tone. "I tried to tell you that. In my letter."

"It was an idiotic letter," Mai said promptly, because she doubted many things, but this was not one of them.

"_I know_," Zuko snarled, stopped, and fell silent. He seemed to realize that he had stepped closer, his head lowered over hers, and he took a quick pace backwards.

She watched him back away, and took a careful, calculated step forward. He didn't move again. "What do you want, Zuko? My forgiveness?"

Frustration and longing on his face, so intense that it made her chest hurt. "I thought I might have that already," he said, tentatively.

On the day that the Avatar had defeated Firelord Ozai, the nursery that they had played in as children had been blackened by fire, child-sized beds and chairs reduced to so much tinder. She had followed the smell of electricity and burnt feather mattresses there, and watched them fight, brother against sister, unnoticed by either. When she brought up the last of her stilettos to throw, she hadn't even known which target she intended to hit. When Azula's arm had fallen to her side, bleeding and suddenly useless where Mai's blade had cut through tendon and muscle, damaging it beyond even a waterbender's ability to heal, she had known. Never had there been any doubt of where her loyalty lay, not really, not even after Zuko had left, and she had been left with his sister.

"Not an unreasonable assumption, I suppose," she said.

Only Zuko, she reflected, would take that kind of non-answer as encouragement. He placed a light hand on the back of her neck, and even so simple a touch made her feel like he had shot lightning straight down her spine to pool somewhere near the pit of her stomach. It was like the rush of a fight, but better, so much better, comfortable and familiar and strange, all at the same time. When he pressed his mouth against her temple, she held her breath and stood perfectly still.

"You're an idiot," she reiterated, to cover up the pounding of her heart. "I expect you to be less of one when I come back."

"When you come back?" he asked roughly. His breath was warm, and his upper lip caught on her skin as he spoke.

She nodded once, sharply, and stepped away from him because she wasn't sure of her control. He let her go without protesting, and it was with considerable effort that she kept her pace slow and dignified as she turned towards the boat.

"We'll see," she said.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

The ship was neat and orderly, and the crew averted their eyes when they saw Mai, as if not seeing her would allow them to deny that they had carried a passenger from the Fire Nation to the Earth Kingdom. All well bribed, no doubt. She looked at the crest hanging from the mast, a boar on a field of green, and wondered why it seemed familiar. When she stepped into the hold long enough to change into her Earth Kingdom clothing, ducking behind a the insufficient screen provided by a piece of stretched canvas that also served to conceal the latrine, they gave up their studied inattention long enough to leer at her and attempt a glance of pale skin. She left her expensive red robe in a pile there, and maliciously hoped that it would be enough to make a customs official at the next port wonder. At that point, the captain approached her, and asked her to retire to the cabin that had been prepared for her, because she was distracting his crew.

She agreed, more out of distaste for her surroundings than out of any consideration for him. The thought of solitude comforted her; what she found when she was shown to her quarters did not.

"Hello, niece," Iroh said, and beamed at her. "Would you like some tea?"

A lesser woman might have sputtered. Zuko would have shouted. Mai settled herself on a cushion across from him, poured some tea, wished for something stronger, and said, "General Iroh. This is a surprise." She thought that her deadpan tone successfully conveyed that this was understating matters significantly.

"Ah, yes," Iroh agreed. "I suppose you would like an explanation."

Mai looked at him.

"As I was arranging for you to travel to the Earth Kingdom, I realized that it had been _such_ a long time since I had a _vacation_. Fire Nation politics are tiring, you know, for an old man like me. And I thought, what could be better than a nice trip to the Earth Kingdom, with a beautiful young lady to keep me company?" He glanced at her, hopefully.

Mai refused to be charmed. Or to dignify such a comment with a response.

"Besides," Iroh continued, "I love boats. Did you know, the captain said that we could have a music night tomorrow? He thought that it would be very relaxing for the crew. Such a nice man."

Mai wondered a bit how he could get both tea and music night within an hour of arriving onboard, when she couldn't even get a civil word. She thought that she might hate Iroh a little.

She contemplated the idea. Iroh continued to beam at her, and seemed to be waiting for some sign of approval.

Finally, Mai sighed.

"Whatever."

The former general took this as his looked-for approval. Mai considered the possibility that reading things into her less-than-expressive responses was a family trait.

"Good. I am sure that we'll have an excellent time." Iroh sipped his tea, and refilled her cup without asking. "Now, would you like to play a game of pai sho with me?"

"Not really."

She wasn't particularly surprised when he set the game up anyway. She accepted the bag of pieces that he gave her without further protest, selecting which of the small ceramic tiles she would use with the same care that she gave any plan of attack. When they both had their tiles arranged, the game began.

"We should have a wager," Iroh said, as Mai's long fingers slid one of her tiles a few places to the left.

Mai made a noncommittal noise, but was interested in spite of herself. "Money?"

"Oh, no," Iroh said, his tone decisive. "If you win, I will board another ship as soon as we reach Earth Kingdom soil, and return to the Fire Nation."

She couldn't deny that it was a tempting offer. "And if you win?" she asked, too cautious to enter into an agreement without knowing what her side of the bargain would be. Since it sounded too good to be true, it probably was.

Iroh considered. "A kiss," he said gallantly.

Oh, for Agni's sake. She rolled her eyes, but nodded her head in agreement to the terms.

They were well matched, although she could tell from the start that he was the better player. She was more ruthless, heedlessly sacrificing pieces to gain the advantage, but his tactics baffled her. Even as a child, she had shown a gift for anticipating her opponent's moves, but he slid forward when she would have retreated, passed on his turn at times when, had she been in his position, she would have pressed an advantage. Once or twice, he spared a piece of hers from the pot even when he could have taken it, and she couldn't even fathom why. Much to her surprise, his patience outlasted even her own as he slowly, inexorably, chased her around the board, gained points for himself, and finally cornered her. She moved to escape from the trap he had so carefully formed, and found the last of her tiles removed from the board when his white lotus skipped forward to take it, having sat, forgotten until now, in the same place where it had been at the start of the game.

"It would seem that I owe you a kiss," Mai said, as he packed away their tiles and the game board.

"I think I'll save it for later," Iroh said. He poured another cup of tea from the now-cold pot, and blew on it to warm it before handing it to her. "That was a delightful game. I wonder why you don't play more often."

The third time she had beaten Azula, the princess had lowered her eyelashes, and calmly pushed the board off the table. Three of the tiles had been crushed under the weight of the board, another one broken in two. They had been a gift from Mai's uncle, who was strange and whose talk about the prison he ran had disturbed and fascinated Mai by turns, but who was never boring and believed in the importance of family strongly enough to gather her in a bone-crushing hug every time her saw her, even under his sister's disapproving gaze.

"I suppose I outgrew it," Mai said, and took a languid sip of her tea to hide anything that her face or her voice might have failed to conceal. "Games are for children."

"Ah, but pai sho more than just a game."

Mai shrugged, and they lapsed into silence. The next night, she stolidly refused to accompany him to the music night he had arranged with the crew.

"You have lovely hands," Iroh told her. "Are you sure that you don't play an instrument? The shamisen perhaps, or the flute?"

Like every girl who attended the Academy, she had learned to play, a fact that he undoubtedly knew as well as she did. Music was an acceptable pursuit for a lady, as long as she played with precision and grace, and little passion. Once she had mastered it, Mai had quickly lost interest.

"No."

He left her, and she remained in the cabin, where she had spent the better part of the last two days. Even there, she could hear the music, and Iroh's voice raised in song, wavering over the high notes, rough with age, but still strong and oddly beautiful.

The third day, Iroh went to play pai sho with some of the crew, and returned with what had to be the weekly earnings of three or four Earth Kingdom sailors. Mai spent the afternoon hours flicking her knives at the far end of the cabin, leaving notches in the otherwise smooth wood. She went to bed early, claiming the room's only bed. (Somehow, Iroh had gotten it the two nights before, and she had ended up sleeping on a pile of cushions on the floor.)

On the fourth day, they reached port. In spite of the fact that he had apparently been robbing them blind at pai sho for the duration of their voyage, the crew bid Iroh a tearful goodbye. When they broke into an off-key rendition of some silly song involving loving and leaving a woman for every season, Mai went to wait on the dock, and pretended that she couldn't still hear their caterwauling from twenty feet away. Iroh joined her shortly, smiling and wiping tears from his eyes.

"Are you ready to go?" Mai asked him, her tone implying that he had better be.

Iroh was staring into the middle distance behind her, and Mai fought not to be annoyed. "General Iroh?"

"Ah, yes. I made some travel arrangements for us. Perhaps I should tell you..."

Before he could finish, Mai found herself enveloped in a very... pink... hug.

"Mai!" Ty Lee said, a little too loudly, since her mouth was approximately two inches from Mai's ear. "I'm so happy to see you!"

Mai fought, and succeeded, to keep her surprise off her face as she turned within the circle of the other girl's arms. When they had been traveling together, she had once complained that Ty Lee's hugs most closely resembled the death grip of an orangutan-boa. All the same, she wrapped her arms around her friend, and leaned into the embrace. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" she asked, and wasn't sure what to make of the quiet emotion in her own voice. She sounded like a stranger, no longer cool and composed, but... Surely she could be happy to see Ty Lee, whom she had never thought to see again after her banishment? Surely she was allowed that? More quietly, so that Iroh wouldn't hear, she murmured, "I'm happy to see you, too."

And Ty Lee, who knew what such an admission would cost Mai, smiled.

"We're going to be traveling together again!" Ty Lee said, excitedly. "Isn't that wonderful? My circus is going to be your camouflage. The Firelord even said that if I do a good job, he might pardon me, for, uhm, services rendered." She drew back, and smiled again. "Not that I'll come back! But it would be nice to be able to visit my sisters, I guess. And you."

There were times when Ty Lee spoke, and all Mai heard was, "La la la la la, I'm so pretty." This, however, caught her attention. She looked at Iroh, and he inclined his head slightly in confirmation.

"You consider the circus an inconspicuous way of traveling?" she asked him.

"Well, no one will look for us there."

Mai wished for something against which to bang her head.

"How do we know that the circus will go where we need to go?"

"Oh," Ty Lee said, with a giggle, "I don't think that will be a problem."

The reason why became apparent when Ty Lee led them into the circle of brightly colored tents set up right off the pier, and was immediately gathered into the arms of a muscular young Earth Kingdom man with an unmistakable air of infatuation. That didn't startle Mai; men were always falling in love with pretty, sprightly Ty Lee. What made her pause was the answering softness on Ty Lee's face. Perhaps there was more than one reason why the acrobat was unwilling to return to the Fire Nation.

"This is Huan," Ty Lee said. "He took over the circus after his father died a few months ago."

"The war?" Iroh asked, his expression sympathetic.

Huan's dusky cheeks turned bright red, and he mumbled something that could have been 'angry tigress,' or 'jealous mistress.' Iroh wisely decided not to ask any more questions.

"This is Iroh," Ty Lee said. "And this is Mai. She's my best friend in the whole wide world, even if her aura _is_ a dingy gray." She eyed the air around Mai's head with displeasure, as if a frown could alter the color of the aura she was seeing. Or not seeing, as Mai was inclined to believe.

Huan stuck out a hand to Mai and, when she took it, seemed nervously torn over whether he should shake it or kiss it. He attempted to do both, and ended up thumping her knuckles against his broad, muscular chest, at which point Mai extracted her hand from his grasp, and refused to give it back. His cheeks had turned an even brighter shade of red, and he quickly excused himself to go see to some item of circus business. A moment later, a woman covered in sparkling green sequins and not much else came to show Iroh where he was sleeping. Mai couldn't really blame him for following her without any kind of protest at being separated from his traveling companion.

"I'll show you where to put your things," Ty Lee said, and hooked a knee back and over her shoulder, in that absent way that Mai would never admit she had missed. "You can stay in my tent!"

"Won't that cut in on your... private time... with Huan?" Mai asked, and tried not to imagine long nights of hair braiding and toe painting on the road to Omashu.

Ty Lee giggled. "We'll find a way, don't you worry. He's cute, isn't he?"

Mai made a noncommittal noise.

"Strong as an ox, too. He can toss me ten feet in the air, and catch me, all without breaking a sweat."

Mai snorted.

"And he's _so_ smart. He was at the University in Ba Sing Se. He only came back after his father died because we needed someone to run the circus."

Privately, Mai wondered if he had flunked out, and that was his real reason for returning. "You really like him, don't you?" she asked.

Ty Lee let her leg fall back to the ground, and bobbed her head in a nod. "He makes my aura all pink. Really, really pink."

"I suppose..." Mai gritted her teeth, "...that I can like him, too, in that case." Really, the young man had given Mai no reason _not_ to like him. All of his awkwardness and apparent shyness aside, he seemed eager to please and very taken with Ty Lee. He wasn't what she would have wanted, had she been in Ty Lee's place, but...

As if reading her thoughts, Ty Lee threw her arms around Mai's neck, and gave her a squeeze. "Not all of us want princes and crowns, Mai! I'm happy here. Be happy for me?"

"I am," Mai said, and more-or-less was, although it was also a way of ignoring Ty Lee's other remark.

"I missed you so much," Ty Lee said, and Mai didn't respond, but she also didn't protest when her friend reached out and took her hand before leading her further into the brightly colored world of the circus.


	10. Chapter Nine Preview

I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't abandoned this story, nor do I intend to. The next chapter, which is focused on Zuko, is already written. I just need to find the time to edit it.

In order to assure people that the next chapter is indeed coming (and because ff has a rule about authors posting stand-alone notes), here's an excerpt.

* * *

Sure enough, Ling's bottom lip began to quiver, and Zuko felt an answering quiver in his stomach. He hated crying women. He hadn't seen many of them as a child (Azula was not inclined to tears) and had never quite developed the knack for dealing with them. Once or twice, he had seen Ty Lee or Katara cry – with joy, with anger, with sadness – and the experience had invariably left him with the desire to retreat. He had tried to comfort Katara, once. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea.

Half an hour later, and he still hadn't finished melting the ice from his feet and hands, but she was no longer crying, so he figured it had been a success. Success or no, he had not been inclined to repeat the experience.

* * *

**bibphile**, who left me an awesome review in the previous chapter, had some questions about chronology. It's probably been between six and eight months since Ozai's defeat, and a little longer than that since Zuko left to join Aang. And yes, Tom-Tom probably should be talking by now. Er, maybe he's been too busy exploring the joys of mobility to learn? I'll be the first to admit that my timeline got a bit screwy in this one – sorry, guys.


	11. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

Long, pale legs wound around his waist, and Zuko groaned, burying his face against Mai's neck. The smell of her skin was intoxicating, warm and sweet and subtly smoky. She gasped for breath and writhed against him, her breasts brushing the bare skin of his chest as she pressed herself closer. _"Please,"_ she murmured, her voice dark with need. When he slid himself into her, she gave a low cry of pleasure, and he shuddered with it.

Waking up was a significant letdown.

His body aching and his temper rising, Zuko registered the pounding on his door. The pale slant of sunlight through his window, as familiar to him as the regular pulse of his own blood, told him that it had only been a few short hours since he had tumbled, exhausted, into bed. With murder on his mind, Zuko rolled out of bed, and stormed across the room to jerk open the door.

"_What?"_ he snarled. Leutenant Jee, now the captain of Zuko's own personal guard, did not look sufficiently impressed and, if possible, Zuko's scowl deepened.

"Firelord," Jee said, and even through the lingering haze of sleep Zuko realized that Jee was pale, and that he would not be knocking if it wasn't a matter of some urgency, since he had been the one guarding that same door when Zuko had slumped through it an hour before dawn.

He woke up very quickly after that. Never one to mince words, he rubbed his eyes (barely noticing the rough scar tissue that surrounded one of them) and said, "What's gone wrong now?"

"I really think you should see it yourself," Jee said. Then, apparently feeling that more information should be offered, he added, in hushed tones, "The new delegate from the Earth Kingdom is dead."

His reaction to Jee's words was immediate. In less than a minute, Zuko had shrugged into a robe and was following Jee down the corridor, hair unbound and a pillow mark still creasing his cheek, royal dignity abandoned in favor of potential diplomatic disaster. "I suppose it's too much to hope for that he died quietly, in his sleep, of natural causes?" He didn't really hold out much hope. Even in times of peace, the Fire Nation could be a violent place and, although the war had ended, the first few months of Zuko's rule had been anything but peaceful.

Jee looked remarkably composed, but he was still pale under his tan. "I think that we can safely rule out natural causes, Firelord." They entered the corridor where diplomats and other important guests were housed, and Jee pushed open a door.

The walls were splattered with blood.

Zuko paused on the threshold. With all he had seen, the things he had done, he was still not entirely immunized to the sight of violence, especially when it was smeared across the pretty wallpaper that his mother had chosen to decorate these rooms during the last year of Azulon's rule. The room was crawling with soldiers, though, and a small, almost frantic voice whispered in the back of his mind, _show no weakness_. So he squared his shoulders, lifted his head, and stepped inside.

"Report," he snapped.

"A palace maid found him," Jee said, "when she came in to build up the fire this morning."

"Where is she now?"

"With one of my men. Hysterical."

"I'll want to talk to her."

"Understood."

Having taken in the room, Zuko forced his attention to the man – the body – sitting in a chair beside the fireplace. His throat had been sliced open, Zuko noted distantly. There were no other visible wounds, and it seemed impossible to him that so much blood had come from such a thin little cut. There was a book in his hands, open. Clearly, he hadn't even had time to react, or to fight.

Tyro, Zuko remembered. His name had been Tyro. Somehow, that made it worse, having a name for the body.

"We have to find who did this," Zuko said, shoving a weary hand back through his hair and purposefully moving his gaze away from the dead Earth Kingdom delegate.

"Not a professional job," said a grotesquely cheerful voice from the door. "Much too messy."

Zuko's head swung towards the door, even as two of his soldiers moved the bar the man standing there, their movements already sharp with nerves. He had to peer around two sets of broad shoulders in order to identify the leaner, shorter figure beyond them. Lee. Mai's bodyguard, the one she had left behind when she had departed for the Earth Kingdom. Zuko had seen him several times in the past few days, floating around the palace, seemingly at a loss.

"Let him in." When the soldiers moved to do his bidding, Zuko focused sharp eyes on the other man. "Explain what you mean by that."

Lee entered the room, glancing around once before turning his gaze, not to Zuko, but to the body beside the fireplace. He shrugged at Zuko's question. "Just what I said. Mind, a knife to the throat is good enough in a dark alley. But in a palace, where there are people in every corridor, at all times? Whoever killed him would have had to get _out_, as well as in, and that's hard to do if people notice that you've got blood all over you. Throat slitting is messy, and the mess gets everywhere, including on the person doing the slitting. There are cleaner ways to kill a man."

Zuko felt his stomach turn over. Killing was one thing, if it was on a battlefield or during an Agni Kai. That was bad enough. But the kind of killing that Lee spoke of so matter-of-factly, a knife in the dark without even the honor of a duel behind it, was... disturbing.

"How do you know all this?"

Another shrug. "I served in the Firelord's army, once."

"You were no soldier," Zuko said, as sure of that as he was of anything.

Lee smiled, thinly. "No."

He walked over to the window, moving stiffly, favoring one of his legs over the other. Zuko watched him through narrowed eyes. "You will tell me everything you know of the matter."

"Ask me nicely."

Zuko's vision blurred, and he felt an angry outburst such as he had not indulged in for months building. Before he could let it loose, most likely in the form of a fireball, Lee continued. "I really don't know any more than you do. Except that this definitely wasn't done by a professional. It was personal." He twitched aside the tapestry beside the window, revealing a hastily scrawled word on the papered wall.

_Traitor._

"Nice touch," Lee said, his expression as serenely indifferent as his voice had been earlier. "There's an overturned inkwell on the floor over there. Did your friend in the chair have any enemies?"

"He was a former Earth Kingdom rebel in the heart of the Fire Nation. Where would you like me to begin the list?" Zuko asked, resisting the urge to run his hands over his face. He was tired. He was worried. He desperately needed to get out of this room, but was yet to figure out how to do so without it seeming like he was running away.

"What do you want us to do, Firelord?" one of the soldiers asked. Apparently, he had been silent for too long.

"Remove the body. He will have to be returned to the Earth Kingdom, but for now..." he turned over options in his head, quickly. "For now, send him to the temple of Agni within the palace. Discover what you can from the body, but do so as respectfully as you can. Then leave him in the care of the Sages." His uncle, and probably not a few of his subjects, would have been dismayed to know that his concern had more to do with not wanting to exacerbate what was already going to be a difficult situation with the Earth Kingdom than it did with care for the deceased. He thought that Mai might have approved, though. He could almost hear her, now. _Bad enough, without having to worry that you're going to be accused of some quaint little form of Earth Kingdom body desecration._

Actually, his uncle and subjects probably would have been perfectly warranted in their dismay. With an effort, he dragged his mind back to a more compassionate bent. "I will see personally to informing the Earth King and any family this man might have of this unfortunate turn of events."

"Yes, being dead is generally considered unfortunate," Lee murmured. Zuko tried hard not to snarl, and mostly succeeded.

"Leave," he said to Lee.

The man did so, but not so quickly that Zuko couldn't hear his next comment. "Dear sir and or madam. I regret to inform you that your brother, father, and or son has suffered a most unfortunate turn of events..." His voice faded as he stepped out into the hall.

"I could have him killed," Jee offered, and Zuko wasn't entirely sure if he was serious or not.

"No. That's not necessary."

"Not necessary. Possibly enjoyable."

Well, maybe... "No."

"Further orders?" Jee prompted.

"I'll speak to the maid, now."

Jee nodded once, a sharp inclination of the head, and once again lead Zuko down the hall, into a nearby room. It was another guest suite, this one empty of occupants, except for a soldier posted near the door, and a thin, plain girl seated on the hearth. She was shivering, even though she was sitting within inches of the fire, her eyes downcast and her knees gathered up to her chest.

"What's her name?" Zuko asked Jee, quietly. He didn't miss the sharp glance of approval that the former sailor gave him. Others would not have asked after something so trivial as a servant's name. Zuko, himself, would not have asked, during the first two years of his exile, when Jee had first served him. That he did now was why he was able to rely on Jee's loyalty, so much stronger than the mealy, half-hearted stuff that he had been offered only couple years earlier. Agni help him, this man – and others – _believed_ in him, now.

"Ling, I believe."

Zuko nodded shortly, and went to kneel in front of the girl. She glanced up at him, then looked quickly away. Moments later, she gasped in sudden recognition, and nearly bumped her head into his knees as she hastily abased herself.

"Sit up," Zuko said impatiently, and she did so only reluctantly, a look of abject terror on her face. He made a concentrated effort to gentle his tone. "I have some questions to ask you."

"Yes," Ling said, pushing that one syllable out of her mouth with obvious effort. "Your... Firelord...ness. Sir."

"I understand that you found the Earth Kingdom representative in his room this morning." He didn't feel the need to add that the Earth Kingdom representative had been dead at the time, since that would likely send her into another bout of hysterics.

Sure enough, her bottom lip began to quiver, and Zuko felt an answering quiver in his stomach. He hated crying women. He hadn't seen many of them as a child (Azula was not inclined to tears) and had never quite developed the knack for dealing with them. Once or twice, he had seen Ty Lee or Katara cry – with joy, with anger, with sadness – and the experience had invariably left him with the desire to retreat. He had tried to comfort Katara, once. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea.

Half an hour later, and he still hadn't finished melting the ice from his feet and hands, but she was no longer crying, so he figured it had been a success. Success or no, he had not been inclined to repeat the experience.

"I just need to know if you saw anything. Someone leaving his room. Anything," he said, desperately hoping to head off weepy disaster. The morning had been hellish enough as it was. He really didn't need this.

Mutely, she shook her head, which was about what he had expected. Whoever had done this had been long gone by the time she had arrived. He nodded in response, and rose to leave.

"F-Firelord?"

He pause, half turning back to her.

"I'm not going to be dismissed... am I?" She paused, then spoke in a rush. "It's just, Lady Mai already told me that she no longer needs my services, and then General Iroh was kind enough to offer me a position, but I don't think that I could find another one if I were to be dismissed here, so—"

Zuko waived a hand to stem the flood of words, his impatience returning. "I have no intention of dismissing you. Just do your duty." With those rather curt words, he left the room, waving off Jee's offered escort and returning to his own wing of the palace, and the comfort of his study.

The task that awaited him, however, was less than comforting.

He took a scroll out of his drawer, unrolling it and weighing down the edges so that the heavy paper wouldn't curl inwards. He stared at it for a long moment, before he took up a pen and began, carefully, to write.

He had no talent for letters. He wished that his uncle were here.

_...words cannot express the depth of my regret, or my shame. Rest assured that whomever committed this terrible act can and will be found..._

Zuko sighed, and wondered if the business of ruling would ever get easier.

* * *

Lee waited until he was down the hall and around the corner before pausing, the smirk fading from his face. Death, in its many forms, had long since ceased to bother him, but there was really very little to be entertained about.

With a stifled sigh (he refused to let Mai's influence rub off on him) he started down yet another one of the innumerable palace hallways, and another, winding downwards until he had reached the palace kitchens. He stepped inside, the noise, bustle, and heat of the place not bothering him in the least. If someone had been there to hear him, he might have claimed that the dry, hot air would give him a rash, but there wasn't, so he didn't.

Near the door, a guard stood, watching the food's preparation with the unblinking attention of a hawk. Only someone paying careful attention would have noticed the crudely inked flower tattooed on the back of his wrist, just peaking out from under his uniform, undoubtedly put there by the less-than-careful hand of a fellow soldier. Only someone who knew what to look for would have, with considerable imagination, been able to identify it as a lotus.

Iroh had pointed this man out to Lee soon after his arrival. At much the same time, he had pointed out Tyro, the man sent here to represent the Earth Kingdom's diplomatic interests in the Fire Nation.

Lee sidled up to the guard, and leaned casually against the wall. For a moment, he just stood there, watching the busy work of the cooks and their helpers.

"Tell the Grand Masters," he said, "that the White Lotus has wilted."

The man's hawk-liked eyes flinched, the only outward sign that he had heard, or that the words meant anything to him. Lee nodded, and left the kitchen.


End file.
